Time and Again
by kgs-wy
Summary: Drakken has the perfect plan for Shego! It just involves a little time travel and a little bit of seduction. Wait, seduction? He wants her to seduce who? This can only end badly! Or, perhaps, in a second chance a certain thief thought she'd never get...
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Forward**

Hey there, everyone. First off, this is based off of a challenge on the KP Slash Haven site. Secondly, I have a few notes concerning _potential_ inconsistencies between what'll be presented in the following vs. the "established canon" of the KPverse, and my interpretation thereof. First off, the timeframe of this fic, as far as Shego goes, starts off a couple weeks after the Kim Possible movie "So the Drama". It's my opinion that Shego would be going through some very trying times, what with almost dying under a massive, electrified concrete and steel radio tower, and not long too terribly long before that having been affected by the Moodulator.

I'm basing most of the first several chapters of this fic in 1984, but even so, it's obvious that the KPverse is quite advanced in many ways as compared to the real world. It's my personal opinion that the level of technology available in the timeframe of this story is roughly equivalent to our own current real life levels in a general sense, while the KPverse we all watched Kim dashing around saving the world in is several years - if not a couple decades - ahead of us now.

With that in mind, please, enjoy!

**Disclaimer:** This is a work of fiction based on the "Kim Possible" universe, and is written for entertainment purposes only and is a strictly not for profit endeavor. "Kim Possible" and all characters thereof are owned by "The Walt Disney Company and Affiliated Companies"; any other name, individual with such, product or etc. are registered, trademarked, and/or copyrighted by their respective owners. Should any of the aforementioned or their affiliates request it, I shall change the name of any product, individual or etc. and/or remove this work of fan fiction from the Web.

Individuals, corporations and/or entities without registered, trademarked, and/or copyrighted names, but with a well known and/or public presence that may or may not appear within this work of fiction are considered fair use.

Any original characters, devices, products or etc. are mine, but may be used in "Kim Possible" or other fandom works of fiction, art or etc. so long as either a) permission sought from _and_ given by me, or b) full disclosure of the source is given in said work. Thank you.

Now that all the boring stuff is out of the way, on with the fic!

**AD AD AD AD**

"You want me to _what_?" Shego exploded, grabbing the mad scientist she called an employer by the collar of his lab coat.

"You heard me, Shego!" Dr. Drakken declared firmly, seeming to ignore the threat an angry Shego represented, "I'm your employer, and you put _nothing_ in your contract about using your looks to seduce women!"

"That's not the point, Dr. D.!" Shego growled, shoving him back and folding her arms stubbornly across her chest.

"It _is_ the point, Shego!" Drakken almost begged, "And according to your pre-employment screening and the information HenchCo had on file, you're a pansexu-…"

"Shut! Up!" Shego interrupted with a deep blush crawling across her cheeks. She wanted to rage at the blue skinned mad scientist, but found herself unable to. Instead, she chose biting, if subdued from the norm, sarcasm to answer him, "This is just another hare-brained idea of yours, and it's doomed to fail when Princess busts in with her new suit and ruins everything! As _usual_!"

Despite her inability to vent her anger at Drakken about using her contract against her so smoothly, the alternate tack she took was just as effective. He stood in his spot, his mouth opening and closing like a gaffed fish looking for all the world as if she'd struck him physically. He pouted at her for several seconds as she paced, trying to calm her angry breathing and remain in control.

Not only was the expression wrenching at her heartstrings, but he was her employer. That had an especially strong effect on her, since Drakken seemed to have had so little need for her during his nearly successful Li'l Diablo plot. It wouldn't do to have him fire her for breaching contractual obligations, which would mean she would have to leave. _And I couldn't take that now…_ She turned away from him, partially to block out the sight, and partially to hide her own misty eyes from him.

She pinched the bridge of her nose to hide the fact that she was wiping at her eyes from Drakken. A month ago, she'd have laughed at someone daring to say she would have to do anything like it, or thought herself crazy for thinking it possible. Unfortunately, due to events beyond her control she was lost, afloat in a sea of uncertainty. The Moodulator incident had forced her to look at herself and her reasons for staying at the man's side, despite failed plot after failed plot, and the ever mounting monetary offers from other villains such as Professor Dementor or Gemini.

Originally she had believed the Moodulator was forcing the feelings upon her. But after being told it only drew existing feelings out and intensified them, she had slowly admitted to herself what she felt. It had been painful, especially when she'd chosen to act upon the feelings.

She'd tried to subtly hint to him that she wanted more than a professional relationship; over the months that had passed after the Moodulator had worked its effects on her, however, he hadn't once picked up on it at all. Then Kim Possible had kicked her into the Li'l Diablo control tower. Suffering a near death experience after the failed Li'l Diablo incident had only reinforced that, perhaps, she should be more forthright with him about her feelings.

Unfortunately, after breaking the two of them out of prison, she hadn't had the chance to talk things out. She didn't want to corner him and scare him away, nor did she want to come across as someone willing to sleep her way up the ladder. Not that thoughts such as that would occur to the mad scientist; especially after he'd missed the sometimes blatant hints she'd been dropping over the last few weeks. He was, well and truly, a mad scientist, and a dorky and oblivious one at that.

Even so, he had a strange sort of charm, when he wanted to, and he was in surprisingly good shape under his bulky lab coat, especially considering his age. _At least he's got some legs to go with the upper body, unlike Midas…_

Shego dropped her hand listlessly from her eyes to her side, mentally berating at herself for such a comparison. _All of this overthinking is _not _helping!_ she screamed at herself.

"Shego?" Drakken ventured with nervous concern, and she held a hand up, asking for a moment more of silence. Drakken, wisely, kept his tongue, waiting for his sidekick to finish whatever deliberations she was going through.

_The worst part is that I know, not hope, but _know_, that I'll be back to my normal, snarky self with him in the next week or two and stop all of this idiocy!_ Now, however, she was lost. She hadn't felt this way in several years; the confusion as to when her feelings had changed, the wondering if he felt the same, the fear that he didn't. It was distracting her, horribly enough that she'd nearly been busted by a fifty something year old security guard when she'd stolen some quantum phase inducing something-or-another for Drakken's latest plot.

_Another plot he came up with on his own_, she mused with a tired grimace. A plot he had developed while they had been stuck in Global Justice's supermax prison near Pureblo, Colorado. "Sorry, Dr. D.," Shego muttered quietly, "I'm still kinda out of sorts from that radio tower falling on me."

Drakken nodded in understanding. He knew she was tough as nails, but even a nail could bend, or even break. He was still suffering from his own trauma after the Li'l Diablo failure, and he took a more conciliatory tone as he continued. "I understand, but please, Shego, hear me out. Going back in time to stop Kim Possible from being born? This is a _far_ better plan than my Li'l Diablo plot… It would mean the world to me, to us… Literally!"

Shego turned towards Drakken, opening her mouth to shout her denial of his plan's potential for success, and she saw the pout forming once again. _Why couldn't you have waited another week to pull this on me, Drew?_ she raged internally. She tried to fight the feelings that the pout engendered in her, the feeling of weakness, the desire to console him, to just say yes to make him happy. She almost succeeded.

Unfortunately, she found the expression too cute, and it broke down any remaining walls of resistance within her. As if pulling her own teeth without anesthesia, she relented, silently cursing herself and her newfound emotional attachment to the blue skinned goofball, "Fine, Dr. D.! But you owe me a _huge_ raise for this! And _we're_ going someplace _other_ than Karaoke Night this Friday, and with_out_ the henchmen!"

"Fine, fine, Shego," Drakken declared contritely, his tone ruined by the surprisingly smug smile he wore. With a firm nod, he turned towards the laboratory, "But don't worry! When we succeed in this, by the time you're back, you'll be in charge of Iceland like you always wanted; perhaps I'll include all of Scandinavia and Western Europe, to boot!"

"Whatever!" Shego scowled at him, wondering once again how someone so brilliant could be so dense, "Just leave me alone unless you need me…"

**AD AD AD AD**

"Do you hear that, Blue?" the superheroine known as the Red Masque called over her wireless communicator. The small earpiece was a new addition to her team's arsenal, and was built into the rather ornate looking masks they wore, which could easily be mistaken for a feather and lace burlesque butterfly mask at a distance.

Up close, however, one would realize the masks were made of a strong yet light composite, designed to allow most of their faces to be covered, yet allow full peripheral vision and head movement. The masks also held the electronic brains of their communication and low-light, thermal and even ultra-violet vision modes. She was hoping that their tech contact would be able to install a telescopic and HUD system, as it would mean less equipment to carry; for the time being, however, she was ecstatic the masks worked as well as they did.

"The sound like frying bacon and fingernails on a chalkboard?" Blue Masque - the second member of the team known as The Masque Sisters - called over her own communicator, interrupting Red's ruminations. The woman known as the Red Masque grunted an affirmative to her partner, who continued in a rather excited voice, "Yeah, I did! It sounded like came from the east side of Hallway C!"

"About that, yeah."

There was the sound of tapping that Red knew belonged to the brand new touchpads affixed to both of their left forearms, "That'd make it about where Mrs. Lipsky said the possible temporal anomaly should be, which is Silo C-23!"

"Okay," Red remarked, bringing up the same information on the small, hard cased, hand held screen that Mrs. Lipsky designed for them, "I'm at the intersection of Hallway B and F, race ya?"

"No fair! I'm at C and G, and SC-23's at the far end of the complex!" Red nonetheless heard her best friend's breathing increase as the other woman began running, "You're the cross country girl, you'll beat me for sure!"

"Yeah, sure," Red challenged, dashing off herself, "And you can sprint _all out_ for a half mile before you have to slow down to a _jog_ for a breather! That silo's only a little over two kilometers from either of our positions!"

"Whatever!" Blue chuckled between breaths, "You still have the advantage… At that distance!"

"Whining already… Blue?" Red teased, her breathing becoming labored as well.

"How's this:" Blue chuckled out, "First one there buys… The other one dinner and… A few drinks Friday night?"

"Smooth, Blue… Real smooth…" Red huffed out, blushing brightly. Blue started giggling between breaths, drawing a fond, if frustrated, smile from Red, "Fine! You're on!"

"Looks like… You'll owe me… A dinner date… Then!" Blue shot back in an innocent tone of voice. Red shook her head as her blush spread halfway down her neck, even as she performed some calculations in her head. She concluded that it was about dead even as to who would win. Although Red herself was indeed a cross country runner, and quite speedy for her chosen extracurricular, Blue _was_ faster in sprints. The younger woman could also keep an eighty percent sprint for over two kilometers easily, and was physically stronger to boot.

_And built like a brick shithouse despite all the weights she lifts._ Red griped jealously to herself. _No, the coach said the way we're lifting weights didn't add much bulk, so maybe it's _because _of the weights?_ Then she blushed a deeper hue as the image of her best friend in a sexy two piece at the Upperton Public Recreation Center flashed across her conscious mind.

_Of course, that_ has_ to be it! I mean, she looked _damn _good in that bikini…_ Although it wasn't the first admission of interest in both men and women she'd ever had, her attraction to women had mostly been an intellectual one. That one event, however, had driven it home on every level, like a sledgehammer being used on a finishing nail.

Then again, their new suits weren't helping, either. While styled similarly to their old Lycra and Spectra blend, the suit was made from a new, flexible sheet style polymer that Mrs. Lipsky's son had invented. The suits were literally extruded into the shape and color design of choice, and sized slightly smaller than the wearer themselves. While somewhat inconvenient to literally wiggle into the slightly stretchy material, once donned it was much like a more comfortable version of a neoprene wetsuit, while being as impermeable to water as a neoprene dry suit.

That's where the similarities between the two materials ended. The suit was less bulky than neoprene, and slid on without the need for talcum powder, while being somewhat more flexible. The suit allowed the skin to breathe, thus being cooler than it should have been, yet gave better cold weather protection than a coat made using several kilograms of heat trapping material. It was also fire resistant to a similar extent to the Nomex used in firefighter and race car driver's suits.

The best thing, in Red's opinion, was the fact that it was bullet _proof_ against any powder based pistol they'd tested against it, as well as most carbines and smaller rifle rounds. With anything above about a .308 caliber, non-armor piercing round or low velocity railguns or coilguns, however, it was merely _resistant_, but could blunt the force of the round enough to lessen the damage when penetrated. The material also offered incredible resistance to being pierced or cut by knives, but, like larger caliber bullets, it was not proof against such attacks.

The tightness of the suit wasn't really what was bothering Anne, however. Nor was the completely clear nature of the material over certain parts of her body. Blue's, however, revealed a rather enticing amount of her body. Red had chosen a simple design that faded from a deep, almost burnt crimson at her feet to a red almost as bright as the hair flying free from behind her mask. She had also chosen to go with almost ragged looking swatches of clear over her toned midriff and a small, triangular patch at the apex of her cleavage. The overall look was good, in her opinion, as if some of her more daring regular clothing had been painted on her.

The suit design Blue had requested, however, was far more daring, not to mention distracting, at least to Red. There was a double set of opposed chevrons designed into the chest area, leaving a translucent, but not clear, diamond in the middle of her chest.

The lower chevron was squatter and thicker than the upper, and started just above the bottom of her sternum. The thick design showed off the smooth inner and upper curves of her breasts, following the curves of her bosom enticingly to end a couple inches above where her nipples were. The lower chevron was continued again with a narrower one just above her navel, another, even narrower one across her navel, again just below, and the final, smallest one just above her mons pubis.

The upper chevron was thinner and taller, and looked as if it had been drawn from just above the ending of the lower chevron and up to the hollow of her throat, then skipped a solid section of color to continue around her throat to her back. Her back was almost completely clear, save for a few cut ins of color to accentuate the lines of her powerfully built, but nonetheless feminine, musculature. Where the color became solid again, it was styled to look like the very top of a thong peeking out above a pair of low riding jeans.

Red found herself thinking again how she'd felt earlier when she'd seen Blue's completed suit for the first time. Her internal reaction had been almost identical to when she'd seen her friend in the sexy two piece at the rec center, and she had been ever so thankful that she'd been wearing her mask the second time. Even so, she couldn't help but laugh softly as her mind played over her now certain attraction to both sexes, O_f _course_ it'd be my best friend in the world that drew that reaction out of me for the first time! Wouldn't mom just_ kill _to have that li'l piece of information to embarrass me with?_

"What's so… Funny, babe?" Blue asked, the teasing nickname she'd used for years drawing a further flush of embarrassment from Red.

"Just… Thinking…" Red drawled as she rounded the corner into Hallway C, surprised to find herself only two or three steps behind Blue. She tapped the standby button on her communicator and raised her voice slightly, "That my… Mom would've loved… To be at the… Rec center the… Other day!"

"I would've… Loved her… To be there!" Blue called, glancing back. Seeing the way Red bowed her head slightly, she chuckled despite the run, knowing her friend was blushing madly under her mask. "Hey… She's the hottest… Lesbian I've… Ever met!"

"Damn you!" The powerful scream echoing down the corridor startled both women, stopping their five minutes of nearly all out sprinting as if they'd run into a wall, "Damn you, I _hate_ you!"

"That was… A woman's scream…" Blue gasped out. Being in the corridor that led to SC-23, she and Red whipped out a monocular, changing the focal length for maximum zoom. They both saw the brilliant green flash on the wall where the hallway curved into the silo, shadows cast by the brief, fire-like glow in the room. Lowering their monoculars to their sides, they turned to face each other briefly. "Trouble?" Blue asked, as if to confirm her own thoughts with Red.

"Let's go!" Red barked as they both slipped their monoculars back into their carrying cases. Red got the jump on Blue as they dashed ahead, Blue merely a half step behind, all thoughts of their competition temporarily forgotten.

**AD AD AD AD**

"Dr. D., I'm still really not sure about this…" Shego muttered as she stepped away from the Time and Space Disjointer and Matter and Energy Translocator. "Are you sure this is going to work? I mean, you could have at least, I dunno, _warned_ me that it could collapse within ninety seconds _before_ sending me through to set up the stabilizer for the portal on _this_ side!" To emphasize her point, she flicked her finger against the solid titanium support beam on the right hand side of the portal maintenance device.

"Shego, I knew you could get it set up within sixty, so there were no problems!" Drakken declared while holding up a finger.

"And if I hadn't had to bodily _force_ that support brace back into the proper alignment, it _would_ have collapsed before the device was up!" Shego muttered darkly, "And then you wouldn't have had to worry about _any_ of the Possibles in the future nor here in the past!"

"Um, perhaps?" Drakken hedged, rubbing his hands together in a nervous fashion.

"No perhaps to it!" Shego griped, "I know enough physics and math, combined with all of your _ranting_, to know if it _had_ collapsed, you, me, Possible _and_ all your MIST buddies would have been atomized!" She raised a hand and began ticking off points with more and more agitation, "Along with most of northern and central Colorado, southern Wyoming and most of the western Dakotas and northwest Nebra-…"

"A minor detail…" Drakken interrupted dismissively, turning to make sure the readings on the past side of the device were staying constant.

"A 'minor detail' that would be well over _twelve hundred gigatons_! That's one _**tera**_ton _plus_, Dr. D.!" Shego growled back at him. When the blue-skinned mad scientist gave a silent, helpless shrug, she continued in an acerbic tone even as her voice's volume rose dangerously, "I don't know, Dr. D… If I remember _science_ class right, the comet strike in the Yucatan that killed the dinosaurs was _about_ a teraton… And you're seriously going to stand there and call a multi-_tera_ton explosion _**minor**_?"

"Since it didn't happen?" Drakken said with a good natured smile, "Yes! And see, the portal could stay open for a week, no problem! As long as it's fed power from the other side of the portal, anyway."

"Blah, blah, blah…" Shego grimaced, "Anyway, Dr. Self Assurance, back to my original question: are you _really_ sure this will work?"

"Of _course_ it will, Shego! Like I keep saying, it's utter simplicity!" Dr. Drakken crowed, then sighed, turning a surprisingly understanding gaze upon Shego, "Look, Shego, if this is about your sexuality, it's all in the union details! You didn't specify that _women_ were not off the list in the 'Seduction Opt Out' of your contract, only that men were ou-…"

"Blah-blah-blah, double negatives aren't part of English, Professor!" Shego interrupted, smirking as Drakken scowled at her use of Dementor's title, "And I know that, Dr. Obvious! I just think this is low, even for us, and I have _other_ reasons for not wanting to do this!"

"Shego, words hurt," Drakken muttered with a pout. However, before he could fall into full rant mode, a deep, confused grimace crossed his face, "Wait a minute, Shego… What do you mean '_other_ reasons'?"

"For one," she began, ticking off points on her fingers and wondering how she hadn't developed calluses over the years from doing it, "I don't even know if I can fit in this time period… Two? Do we even know if she'll be interested?"

"Shego," Drakken began as he rummaged through one of the duffle bags that Shego had set down on the floor, making sure all of the contents were inside, "You're a very attractive woman! If anyone could seduce a straight woman, it'd be you." Drakken didn't see the slow, deep blush spreading from the top of Shego's head to well under her catsuit, and for that, Shego was thankful. "And that's honestly beside the point! I have some… Inside information, you might say… That Anne wasn't _nearly_ as innocent as she always let on! She loved partying… Or would that be loves? We _are_ in the past, after all…"

"Huh?" Shego's face slackened in confusion, her question briefly forgotten at Drakken's non-sequitur.

Drakken's face screwed up as he pondered the potential quandary. "I mean, if _we're_ in the past, technically, we're talking about the _present_…" Shego bit her lip, an eye twitching in annoyance. As he continued in a seemingly nonsensical rant, she took a deep breath, slowly counting as the mad scientist continued to ramble. "_Therefore_, I should use present tense, right? But at the same time, we're from the future, and using the present tense in a situation in which we're both from the future and residing in the _present_ which is our _past_, I'm not sure which tense I should be usin-…"

"Just get on with it, Drakken!" Shego exploded, her hands flaring warningly with plasma.

"I'm sorry, Shego… Where was I?" Drakken asked contritely, rubbing the back of his neck self consciously.

"She _loves_ partying?" Shego supplied helpfully, dousing her plasma, much to Drakken's relief.

"Ah, yes," Drakken continued as if nothing had happened, "She loved… Erm, _loves_ to party, and she was very close… _Very_ close… To her best female friend before James somehow managed to sweep her off her feet! But like I said, you're a very attractive woma-…"

"You think I'm attractive?" Shego said aloud, not realizing she had spoken until Drakken spoke up.

"Of course you are!" he almost yelled, "Despite being 'somewhat of a shut in' as my mother would say, I am not only a genius, but a straight man, and I _do_ I notice these things!" He tilted his head contemplatively, "Does it really matter whether I find you attractive or not, Shego?"

"Of course it doesn't matter!" Shego growled sarcastically.

"Oh, good, I was beginning to worry." Drakken sighed in relief, slowly turning about as he checked to make sure everything they'd determined she'd need was there.

Shego, despite being annoyed at the barely contained desire to call out affirmations at his innocently asked question, was even more perturbed to see him miss the sarcasm entirely. _Of _course_ he'd take my comment at face value!_ she growled to herself. She opened her mouth to voice her protests, but saw he was almost facing her. Realizing by the contemplative look on his face that he'd want further explanation, she dredged up yet another of her reasons for avoiding this job and tossed it at him, "I just think it's low to break up a family… With my past, it makes me uncomfortab-…"

"And that's beside the point, too, Shego!" Drakken interrupted fervently, "I'm sorry if this is bringing up your past, but we are, first and foremost, _evil_, an evil _family_, and this is for the best!"

"It's best to break up a family before it even forms?" Shego asked, grimacing at the bitter tone coloring her own voice, "It's best to essentially _kill_ Princess without even being face to face with her?"

"Shego," Drakken took a step forward, his hands held up and gesturing desperately between them, "I need to level with you, here… You're like the niece I'll never have, and if we don't get _rid_ of that pesky cheerleader, don't you think that eventually _our_ evil family will be broken up? Do you want that?" Shego shook her head in mute hurt, her idea, her _hope_ if she were honest with herself, of being an evil family together so different than the one Drakken seemed to envision. "Besides, with Kim Possible out of the way, I'll be able to bring you back to _our_ time, and we'll take over in _no_ tim-…"

"Uh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh!" Shego shouted, the hurt from Drakken missing all the hints she'd been dropping, and now his seeming disregard for her finally cracking the shell that her rage had been hidden behind, "What do you mean '…bring me back…', huh? Are you just going to _leave_ me back here until I succeed with no way to get ahold of you?"

"Of course not, Shego, because you'll have _this_!" Drakken said soothingly, withdrawing a small, gunmetal grey device from his lab coat's inner pocket, gingerly holding it to her "It's a beacon, just press this button to turn the device, then press and hold the button below it until it beeps three times, then press it three times quickly afterwards. I'll get your beacon signal, and open a portal back to _our_ time from _wherever_ you may be at or in the _past_!"

"So," Shego finally grunted, stepping forward to grab the device from his hands. She stared up at him, tempted to strike him viciously despite the long standing loyalty and feelings she had only recently admitted harboring for the blue goof. Instead she paced around, pinching the bridge of her nose as she spoke, "I just have to seduce Princess' mom, make sure she and her husband never get together, and eliminate Kim Possible from the timestream, then head back home as if nothing's happened?"

"Exactly!" Drakken crowed, "I knew you understa-…"

"Won't that mess with the timestream, Dr. D.?" Shego asked, surprising the doctor with the simple, but rather important question.

"It won't change much, Shego; it will _just_ eliminate that cheerleader!" Drakken smiled confidently, hoping that Shego would buy the shockingly smooth lie. And that she didn't notice the sweat trickling down the back of his neck. Or the way he tensed his legs, ready to bolt at a moment's notice. Or the fact that his knees were almost knocking togeth-…

The inner ruminations were cut off as the green hued thief sighed, her voice a soft growl, "I'm going to play with a woman's emotions, tricking her into thinking I'm in love with her so she falls in love with me…" Shego stomped towards Drakken, her free hand clenching and unclenching as she advanced on him.

"Shego?" Drakken gasped.

"I don't suppose," Shego snapped, "That you remember the _last_ time I played with a Possible woman's emotions, do you?"

"Um…" Drakken gulped, backing up, sweat breaking out on his brow as he backed away from the advancing woman, "Now, Shego, no need to get cross! I've thought this plan out completely, and Anne wasn't a Possible at this point!"

"Oh, really?" Shego asked with a raised eyebrow, "And just who, exactly, was she?"

"Like I said before, Shego, James and Anne are _not_ dating!" Drakken hedged, edging around the circular chamber towards the portal. When Shego raised an eyebrow at him, he gulped nervously, continuing in a rush, "She's Anne Credible, she won't start dating James for about two and a half months…"

"And since you're only _now_ telling me all this," Shego muttered in annoyance, ignoring the subtle pang of familiarity Anne Possible's maiden name set off within her. Instead, she followed Drakken as he went back the way he came, trying to get more space between himself and the angry sidekick, "Perhaps you figured wouldn't matter? Huh?"

"Well," Drakken stammered, "Yes, I didn't think it would be pertinent! Besides, it's all in the information I sent back with you!"

"Oh?" she spat at him, "Does that information of yours _also_ tell me how, exactly, I'm going to accomplish making myself 'fit in' in this time period? After all, I picked out the clothing, and know techniques that can make my green skintone go away to the point that light makeup can hide it, but I'll be left with no facts beyond what I've dug up, _and_ a borrowed personae draw from for at _least_ a month, if not _two_ if I have to go around, sneaking my way into every place you suggested with the paperwork!"

Drakken was beginning to sweat, especially with the vehement way Shego stabbed a clawed finger at the attaché case with all of the documents she'd just mentioned. He drew a quiet, long breath, trying to center himself. After all, he knew he'd thought things through, taken everything into consideration, but his panic addled mind was having trouble dredging up the information.

He circled around, looking frantically, before his eyes finally once again alighted back on the large, steel sided attaché case Shego had pointed out where it sat next to the buzzing time portal. "Ah-ha, that's right!" he crowed, pointing, "The modified communication device of Possible's will allow you to access the internet from any unsecured wireless signal with enough free bandwidth. Don't forget, Shego, I grew up in this time, and I know wireless was starting to get fairly widespread."

"It looks like some old smartphone, Doc," Shego interrupted, screwing her face up in confusion, "Not Prince-…"

"I designed it to fit in, Shego!" Drakken interrupted right back, "It'll even act like a phone from back then! Back now! Nnghh, this time period! But it has the advantage of bein-…"

"And if I can't _find_ a signal with enough bandwidth?" Shego cut in with a raised eyebrow.

Drakken paused and pulled himself back full rant mode, trying his best to calm the pale thief and make her see the logic of the situation that was so obvious to him. "Easily: if you don't have the wireless bandwidth, the device can be used from any wireless Internet computer, just like the wireless phone network! You could also plug it into a USB or serial port!"

"But not an Ethernet port?" Shego pressed pointedly, raising a hand as Drakken drew himself up indignantly, "I know, I know, doc, they don't put Ethernet ports on phones! But what if I can't find a good enough signal _anywhere_? _Or_ if I can't find a free computer to plug it into _in time_ to make this work?"

"If, for some reason, you can't get it close to a computer for long enough to plug into it directly, or access the back, the disks I have with it contain a wireless access point that can interface with any CD-ROM or three point five inch floppy drive while wirelessly communicating with the device, allowing it to use the computer's _wired_ internet access to do the same thing!" He paused and brought his hand to his chin, scratching it thoughtfully, "Honestly, you should probably use all three versions of the technique, come to think of it… Just to be sure, of course!"

"What about places that don't _have_ electronic records?" Shego asked sarcastically despite being impressed with his last thoughtful addition. She glanced at her hand as she realized she held something. Seeing the beacon, she bent over to place the beacon safely inside her catsuit's leg pouch.

"You do what you do best?" Drakken asked nervously, drawing Shego's attention from her unopened leg pouch to his hopeful face. Her face twisted in confusion as she stood, staring icy daggers at the blue man.

"Dr. D…" Shego sighed, crossing her arms over her chest, "I mentioned a little earlier the time we're in now? You _do_ realize that I'll probably need to steal vehicles, gas money and etcetera. Granted, I'm one of the best thieves there is, but that much petty theft tends to get noticed! Just to make the person I chose to use a missing person as opposed to dead? It won't wor-…"

"I know, Shego," Drakken interrupted gently as he raised his hands, "But hear me out. All you'd have to do is use your thieving skills, like you said, to get the hardcopy in place. And you won't have to steal anything, since I'm leaving you the new hovercraft with a clear hardtop I received from HenchCo!"

**Author's Notes**

First note, my section breaks have a meaning within the context of the fic… And I won't tell ya what it is, but you're more than welcome to guess. ;) Secondly, I had originally written this chapter out to one "'Neb unit", and I shrank it, afraid it might be a bit too much for one chapter. A 'Neb Unit, for those that don't know, is ten thousand words, the name of course coming from the late, great Cpneb's tendency to write ten thousand words per chapter. :)

Anyway, before I go further, I have to thank Neo the Saiyan Angel and Fuzen Ninja for looking this over and making it readable. That aside, this fic was started as a cookie, then became something to bull my way through and around a pretty heavy duty writer's block. Now that It's a fic in and of itself… I hope I've succeeded with an intriguing, fun piece! It's obviously not complete, and I'll be working on it in the time I'm not writing the last few chapters of the Fannies and doin' beta work for Noobfish and helping Neo the Saiyan Angel with plot bunnehs and minor beta work (by the way: go read their stuff, it's awesomesauce!).

As to why I chose some things to be the way they are in the fic… As mentioned in the Author's Forward, I wanted to present at least a plausible thought as to the greater world than has been presented in the KP series. The tech of the KPverse is obviously far in advance of ours, so when I took the challenge, I decided to let my mind wander… Fortunately - or perhaps _un_fortunately, in some respects? – I came up with a world with technological advancements much like ours, with a few extra goodies thrown in thanks to "super-science" and the like… That still has 80s music… And lots of 80's style when it comes to certain things… Hopefully everyone enjoys it as much as I am writing it!

I took some liberties with character's thought processes in this (and, as many fanfiction authors do, with their past…), especially Shego's thoughts concerning events directly post-_So the Drama_ and _Emotion Sickness_ (I'm quite worried that she's too OOC, even considering what's going through emotionally, so…). Even considering that, however, most of the rest characters presented in the fic are, of course, only a little older than the main characters in the Kim Possible TV series - or looked at another way, nearly twenty years younger than they were in the show - and I'm trying to take that into account with their characterization. Hopefully I've stayed true enough to their general outlook, but do let me know if I've fallen flat on my face. Anyway, my thoughts are pretty much done, and I hope I didn't bore ya too much…

Thanks for reading, everyone!


	2. Chapter 2

"Hovercraft you _received_?" Shego asked, looking around the lair pointedly, "You _bought_ one instead of making one?"

"Oh, snap. I should have said something!" Drakken muttered, embarrassment clear in his tone as he walked over to one of the cases of equipment lying about the silo floor, "I brought it over here and opened the missile's silo hatch when you went to retrieve the clothing you chose for the mission from your room."

"Okay, okay, Doc, two things…" Shego sighed as she ticked off points on her fingers, "One, where is it, and two, don't you make all of yours?"

"One thing at a time, Shego!" Retrieving the remote control panel lying on the box, he pressed a button, and a fizzing sound came from behind Shego. She turned and there stood the hovercraft Drakken had mentioned, with some obvious modifications. "As you can see, this is different from my designs, but no, I didn't buy it, I _received_ it!" Shego raised an eyebrow and the blue skinned man decided to elaborate lest he earn second degree burns for angering his temperamental sidekick, "HenchCo purchased my anti-grav and propulsion designs for a handsome profit, so I got this for free! Second, I've put my own cloaking technology into it, as well as got some help from Cousin Ed to modify it."

"Modify it how?" Shego asked archly, wincing at the worried tone in her voice despite knowing how overblown Drakken's cousin was when it came to modifying vehicles.

"Nothing too severe, Shego, I assure you. He helped me reduce electromagnetic, thermal and gravitic emissions across the board, as well as increase the speed and strengthen the hull and windscreen so it will be mach nine capable. That's why I had them send me the enclosed model. With this, you could be nearly anywhere in the US in a couple hours, so they _will_ believe you're who you said you wanted to be!"

Shego dropped one hand to a cocked hip, the other idly tapping the beacon against her hip as Drakken set the remote back down on the box. Her eyes dropped to the floor as she considered, for at least the twentieth time since Drakken first suggested the mission, whether or not she should go through with it. Yet again, he had thought things through, just like with the Li'l Diablo plan; and he conveniently left her far out of the loop, to boot.

Unfortunately for Drakken's plan, Shego was again suffering from problems with him shutting her out. The irritation of being shut out was further compounded by her distaste at the mission's ultimate goal and her attraction to her boss dredging up her half forgotten string of failed romances.

The agony of those failures, especially the one that finally drove her down the path of evil, were feelings she had thought long buried. That was, until the Moodulator had brought her feelings for Drakken to the fore. Helping make Kim Possible, one of the few people in the world she respected, suffer the same kind of pain hadn't helped. With a deep, startled breath, she realized _couldn't_ inflict that kind of pain on someone else. Not again, _never_ again! It was too personal, too _painful_ for her.

_And now he just wants to_ leave_ me back here?_ That simple thought was the final straw. She opened her mouth to tell Drakken where to shove the whole plan, when she realized Drakken was no longer in front of her.

"Good luck, Shego!" Drakken called out to her, his tone relieved and gloating at once. He turned back and held a hand towards a switch on the other side of the time portal. "This is for my ultimate victory, Shego! You being here is for the glory, _our_ glory, that awaits!"

With Drakken's maddened, maniacal laugh echoing on both sides of the time portal, a rarely felt emotion flooded through Shego: panic, real, raw and alive. She didn't want to be left here, in the past, nor left behind in general.

The overpowering fear slowed her normally sharp, cunning mind; it allowed her body react in deeds and words before her conscious mind could snap its normally iron clad control in place, but slowed her mind to body interaction to a crawl.

Instead of running towards the portal before it could close, she stood there, muscles tight and unmoving. She wanted to call out to him, to get him to stop, to tell him how she felt about him. Finally, she willed herself to call out, but her anger, her rage, spoke before her heart could. "Don't you _dare_ shut that portal and leave me here, you blue skinned wannabe!" Drakken frowned, hurt etched onto his features as he reached towards the wall mounted switch next to the main portal device in their own time.

Drakken's reaction, and her own scream reverberating back at her, finally snapped Shego into action. Her hands lit with their familiar brilliance; the plasma of her right hand, however, was quickly shot through with red, yellow and blue and several other colors. Shego didn't notice as she sprinted forward, drawing one hand back in a wide arc before slamming it forward, giving extra speed to that first ball of plasma, before following that first with several other, slower blasts. She didn't _truly_ want to hurt the scowling mad scientist, of course, but she did want him away from that switch.

Shego's plasma flew.

Drakken flipped a simple switch.

A loud, keening sound like a camera flash powering up dug its way into Shego's teeth.

And as quickly as it had opened before, the portal irised shut like a camera lens, the loud keening changing to an odd mix of bacon frying and fingernails being dragged across a chalkboard. The energy that had glowed and danced around the portal quickly discharged with a soft, static like whoosh of sound via the grounding rod driven through the reinforced concrete and several feet into the bedrock under the facility.

Then Shego's first plasma bolt arrived, and luckily for her, Drakken back in their own time, and everyone within several hundred miles on both sides of the portal, the energy held within that ring of components and metal had discharged so quickly after the portal was closed. Most of her plasma splashed almost harmlessly against the reinforced concrete wall. But her first bolt, and several of her other balls of plasma struck the portal stabilizing device on her side. Tens of thousands of dollars worth of titanium, gold, platinum, graphene, superconducting rings, electrical and computer components shattered, melted, and sparked in the intense heat.

"No!" Shego choked, fearing the explosion that never came. Breathing heavily, she stumbled into a slide on the silo's smoothly coated concrete floor. Realizing that she had lucked out and not set off an explosion never before wrought by human science, she hesitantly reached her hands out to where Drakken had stood only a moment before. The panic she had felt was quickly lost in the roiling deluge of other emotions roiling inside of her with his simple, careless act. "Don't you care, Drew?" The thief's eyes were misty with sudden tears as she dropped her still lit hands to the floor, the concrete and its plastic coating hissing and crackling.

"I-I…" her voice was the faintest of whispers as she drew her hands back towards her, the plasma enshrouded fingers curled into claws. The action tore deep, molten furrows into the reinforced concrete and throat choking, eye stinging fumes that rose about her.

She didn't seem to notice the harsh cloud as she went on, her voice strained in an attempt to keep herself in control, "I… I'm sorry, Doc… Drew… I don't really think you're a wannabe… I…" Shego choked back a sob, even as a single tear traced its lazy way down her cheek. "Don't leave me behind, Drew… Please…"

There was no response to her plaintive plea. The portal remained closed, even as she willed it to open, willed her thoughts to be heard by the blue skinned mad scientist she had fallen for. "Don't leave me behind, Drew… Please… I think… I _know_ I love you…"

More tears followed, and she doused her plasma, pulling her hands back to scrub at her eyes, trying to stop the flow of tears. "I wanted…" a single, brief shudder ripped through her, a sob finally ripping its way from her throat, "I wanted to… To make an evil family with you…"

Confusion. Betrayal. Loss. Rage. The feeling that her heart was being ripped from her chest once again. All of that and more wormed into and through her. She slumped further, shaking in a failing attempt to rein in her emotions.

"I'm done with this mission!" The whisper was harsh, ragged. With a wrenching motion she reached for her leg pouch where she thought the beacon device was. She opened it, glancing over the contents, but not finding the small, seeming innocuous box that should have been there. Her eyebrows knitted in confusion as she ran over the last few moments, before a slow, terrifying realization wormed its way through her consciousness and she turned numbly. There, in a skewed semicircle, were the still burning bits and pieces of her only way back home.

"Damn you!" the thief croaked viciously, her hands coming alight instinctually. In rage, she began punching the still glowing concrete, deforming it with the comet derived power of her body even as the plasma fueled blows dug deeper and deeper into the concrete. "Damn you, I _hate_ you!" The scream was a heart wrenching, mournful sound that echoed back and forth within the abandoned nuclear missile silo.

**AD AD AD AD**

"Shouldn't we…" Blue began roughly, finally in step with Red after the taller woman got the jump on her. They had sixty, perhaps seventy-five meters to go to the SC-23, "Slow down… And sneak in… On whoever… It is?"

"No!" Red gasped, "Element… Of surprise!"

"They…" Blue answered, "Might be… Armed y'know…"

"As long…" Red chuckled, "As they're… Not using… Mounted weapons… And don't hit… Our heads where… The masks don't… Cover…. We're good!"

"I thought…" Blue griped, getting a little under a half step ahead of Red, "Mrs. Lipsky… Said it… Was only… Resistant?"

"Above light sniper… Rounds and… Against armor… Piercing rounds, yes." Red scolded, grinning at her partner "Weren't you… Paying attention?"

"Shut it…" Blue replied, surging forward to gain almost a full step on her friend as they rounded the final corner. They both skidded to a stop when they saw what confronted them. A woman stood in front of a large area of the floor glowing a deep cherry red. There were rents in the floor surrounded with splatters of recently molten concrete, as well as what looked like several sets of claw marks deep within the reinforced concrete.

The woman turned towards them, allowing a clear view of her body. Her catsuit seemed to be made from a similar material and construction to their own, but with a sleeker, smoother design and a green and black, harlequinesque color scheme. The outfit, perhaps due to the simpler design than theirs struck Blue as more daring, despite lacking the clear areas their own uniforms bore. The woman's suit bore no piping or other accessories aside from a pouch on her left calf; the suit also gave a nearly unimpeded view of the woman's body while hiding it all from view at the same time.

More shocking, to Blue at least, was the fact that the woman was devastatingly beautiful. From the almost goth pale, smooth skin of her face to the body the blue clad woman had already noticed, this stranger had more in common with a great cat than a power lifter and sprinter like herself or a long distance runner like Red. The woman's eyes were still wide as she turned from staring at some kind of smoking, ruined machine on the far wall, and were a vibrant, emerald green that shone brightly even in the dim light of the silo. Her lips were stained black, and her hair was a long, luxurious black that lent even more strength to the gothic appearance.

The last element that drew Blue's attention was the woman's stance. She stood with her weight on her right leg, her left hip cocked out slightly and her left fist settled easily where the hip began to curve into her waist. Even with her obvious exhaustion, the woman wore an almost arrogant grin, which set off alarm bells that Blue ignored. Instead, her eyes were drawn up and down the woman's athletic yet curvaceous, body to finally settle on her beautiful face. _I hope she isn't a bad guy…_

Then the woman spoke, her burry, husky voice dripping sarcasm, "I really hope you two aren't here to fight…" Despite her words, she slid into an aggressive, Tiger Claw kung-fu stance, her motions so much like the style's namesake that both Red and Blue froze for an instant, "'Cause I'm _so_ not in the mood!"

"W-who are you?" Blue asked, mentally kicking herself for stuttering like a love struck junior high school girl.

"Did you have anything to do with the temporal disturbance that was detected in this silo?" Red demanded, saving Blue from her self-recriminations.

"Woah, hold up, Red!" the woman called out, her tone almost placating as she stepped back slightly. Then she shocked them both by revealing who had torn up the floor of the silo and destroyed the device sitting in ruin against the far wall. Brilliant green flames burst around her hands, the heat radiating off of her hands almost unnoticeable at first, but spiraling into a deadly heat in less than half a second.

Despite the threat the woman now represented, her voice had caused Blue's eyes to go wide in appreciative shock. The simple shift from a relaxed, confident pose to an aggressive, combative stance, and the new wrinkle the woman's voice and apparent superpower added was far from intimidating to Blue. Instead of scaring or intimidating her, those factors sent her mind into a brief, gibbering mound of desire.

Her mouth went dry even as she swallowed against her own reactions. Not even Red could elicit that reaction, and this woman had done so without even trying! And she seemed ready to fight no matter what happened to her, another point in her favor.

Her earlier thought came back even stronger, and she stepped forward carefully, with hands raised in a placating manner, _As gorgeous as this babe is, I really, really, _really _hope she's not a bad guy… 'Cause I really, really, _really_ don't want to be the good guy that falls for the villainess at first sight bit!_

**AD AD AD AD**

Shego looked down at her hands, her unfocused gaze unable to see the ruin she had made of the reinforced concrete floor and walls of the silo. Dozens of deep, brightly glowing holes and ragged lines from her claws were splayed about her, looking like a creature of pure fire had been trying to claw its way through the floor.

Slowly, she brought her hands up to her face. She was through. She couldn't see a way to finish this mission if she couldn't get home, or even let Dr. D. know about the success or failure of the mission.

_I can't do this…_ she thought, _I… Dr. D., I… I love you, I don't want to fail you, but I…_ Finally, release came as deep, shuddering sobs shredded the emotional wall it had taken years to build. She didn't want to be here. She wanted to be back with Dr. D., helping him with another crackpot scheme. She wanted to be trying to seduce _him_, not the mother of her biggest rival. She wanted to move on, finally defeat Princess… Finally take over the world… To finally show Drakken what she wanted to be to him… _I want to start over with him, to let him know how I feel, not call him a wannabe!_

The beginning of her last thought bounded around back and forth across her mind. Start over… She could… She was unknown to anyone here. Rather, Shea Adele Helen Gottlieb, the precocious two and a half year old daughter to one Go City councilman Jason Christopher Gottlieb and his wife Celeste Gottlieb, the owner of a five store bakery chain, was known to people. But Shea Adele Helen Gottlieb, known to her time as the twenty-four year old supervillainess and superthief Shego, was _not_ known to this time.

Here… Here she could be known as Ailise Vande Schmitt… Her mother's first cousin, and one of three or four from that side of the family that was not directly connected, in some way, with the criminal underground. The perfect cover, Shego could live in the name that Drakken had thought chosen so randomly, but she had chosen with almost malicious forethought. A name she had known all her life, and who Shego had heard so much of when she had stayed with her uncle during college and near the end of her superheroine days. A name belonging to a woman that was already dead as Shego stood there, the body having been incinerated months earlier in an intense, presumably mob-related fireball.

A woman that was now going to be given - thanks to an offhanded remark from Drakken - a new lease on life. Such a simple, joking comment about the source of Team Go's powers and an anomalous meteor one of Drakken's college buddies had seen over twenty-one years earlier, had turned into the basis for a fake life…

Yes… She could live as a twenty-two year old college student majoring in Childhood Development and minoring in Electronics. She could keep from using her powers, keep herself from being or appearing more than she was, or… She could _do_ things with her powers… _On her terms_! Use the carefully plotted out storyline she had come up with if, indeed, her powers were ever discovered.

She could be free of it all. Expectations outside of herself… She could be her own person for once in her life! She liked the idea… _Loved_ the idea!

She scrubbed at her eyes and stood, ignoring the still glowing area around her to begin packing the hovercraft. She might still follow through with Drakken's plan. Or at least attempt it. Her… Uncertain feelings and pride would allow no less than an attempt, but if she failed? It wouldn't matter. She couldn't get back without the beacon, and with the direction her anger, indeed her life as late, was going, she might not care in a few weeks anyway.

She just had a few things to get into the hovercraft's storage bins when a faint "Let's go!" sounded from down the hallway. She knew the people had to be a couple hundred feet away; only her keen hearing and the acoustics of the silo's hallway allowed her to hear the voice. _I should just get out of here…_ Shego griped to herself, rolling her eyes as she walked away from the hovercraft. _But… They might be able to help me out if I can play this right…_

By the sound of the voice, it was a woman in her teens or early twenties, and based on the manner spoken, most likely a cop or, considering the facility, a military type. She should be able to deal with her easily enough, convince the woman that she was a super hero or some such at the very least. With a new plan forming in her exhausted mind, she activated the hovercraft's stealth and autonomous flight modes with the remote and hurriedly stuffed the remote into her calf pouch.

She watched as the hovercraft went into stealth mode and then listened to the barely audible sound of its engines as he lifted up the silo shaft to the surface. Then, barely half a minute later, two figures tore around the corner and into the room. Shego turned, putting on the best cocky smile she could manage and cocking her left hip out, resting her left fist confidently on top. Her heart felt as if it dropped to somewhere around her knees as she got a good look at her visitors.

_Great, _she thought bitterly,_ heroes or wannabes. That's_ just _what I need!_ Both wore what appeared to be an earlier generation of her suit, but with busier outlines and masks that even Hego would consider too much. She grimaced inwardly as she realized that the cut of both uniforms – and especially the color the shorter woman's blue uniform - looked just like a Global Justice uniforms. If not for the lack of rank insignia and the eye catching clear areas that showed off some very enticing bits of skin, Shego would have worried she'd encountered agents of that very organization.

Still, there was something oddly… Familiar about the pair. She _knew_ she'd seen them in a magazine. She mentally shook off the thoughts as the women took up neutral fighting stances, both circling around her slightly. _Well, Red, Blue… Let's see how you wanna do this…_ She let some of the tiredness she felt seep into her voice as she addressed them with as much sarcasm as she could muster, "I really hope you two aren't here to fight… 'Cause I'm _so_ not in the mood!"

"W-who are you?" Blue croaked, and Shego could have sworn the voice wasn't breaking because of nervousness.

_Score one for me!_ Shego crowed mentally as she picked out the signs of attraction from the blue-clad woman's stance and other subtle body language signs. Nonetheless, she couldn't shake the powerful familiarity she got from the shorter woman's voice. She could _almost_ place it, like a word on the tip of her tongue, when her partner spoke up as well.

"Did you have anything to do with the temporal disturbance that was detected in this silo?" Red growled as she advanced on Shego, her voice firm and clear… And familiar in more ways than one.

"Woah, hold up, Red!" Shego barked, her face coloring with emotion as she raised her hands in a defensive manner. She had a plan, after all. It was, she felt, a very good plan considering the circumstances, the modifications she had to put in the original plan and time limitations the two heroines appearance had forced upon her. As quickly as she'd devised it, she had devised several permutations available to it, much like some of her subtler, more elegant thefts.

Unfortunately, her instincts were faster than her exhaustion addled mind, and she lit up as if she were facing Kim Possible. _Oh, _great_ job, dimwit!_ she shouted at herself. She briefly considered dropping the plasma and her hands, but the other women's reactions precluded that._ So much for plan A!_ She barely kept a bitter, self recriminating laugh out of her voice as she spoke, revising the script she'd devised for a piece of what she hoped to be brilliant improve, "I had next to nothing to do with this! It's my boyfriend-… _Ex_-boyfriend…"

"Really?" Blue drawled, her tone mixing sarcasm and curiosity at once.

"Gah, seriously, you two, I _don't_ want to fight!" Shego griped, forcing herself to fall back into old speech patterns she'd worked past after leaving Team Go, for once honestly wanting to avoid confrontation. Especially if she was right about who, exactly, Red was. "I'm serious, I was just here with my boyfri-… My _ex_-boyfriend, and I… He made a… Oh, this is _way_ too much drama for me! Seriously!"

"Serious-…" Red started, then stopped, slapping the palm of her hand to her mask, "Oh, God, _please_ stop with the 'seriously', I know someone that uses that _way_ too much…"

As Blue giggled at Red's discomfort, Shego crowed internally, cocking her head as if considering the proposal. She snorted a chuckle and straightened her head, nodding at Red, "Ok, how about this, Red…" she relaxed her stance, dousing her plasma as she stepped forward with her hands raised to chest height, palms outwards, "I'll seriously… Sorry, I'll _try_ and rein in that word, if we can kinda stop the paranoia and let me explain? I'm not a bad guy here, I'm pretty much an innocent bystander… So let's talk this out without a fight we'll all end up regretting?"

"Fine…" Red acknowledged, relaxing her stance in turn as the superpowered thief dropped her hands slowly to her side, "So long as you tell me what your… 'Ex' was doing, how you got a suit made of top secret material, and the flame tech…"

"Um…" Shego considered how she'd answer, nodding slightly in agreement, "He made a time machine… He wanted to see how great he was in the future, and get some advice…"

"Time machine?" Red asked, her tone a mix of understanding and skepticism at once.

"Yeah…" Shego said, crossing her arms over her chest as if placating someone convinced she was insane, "I know, I know, it sounds crazy, but…"

"Well… Not really?" Blue said, glancing at Red and receiving a nod to continue, "A… Tech friend of ours told us there was some kind of… Temporal anomaly here in the silo…"

"Anomaly… Yeah, you could say that!" Shego griped, "I saw this weird lab with all kinds of tech _way_ beyond what we have now…" She shook her head then, as if stopping herself from going off tangent, "Anyway, the suit my ex made for me, said he found the plans for the material on the internet and improved it… As for the plasma, it's all me, a natural thing that's… Kind of a long story?"

"Plasma?" Blue choked, her tone almost giddy despite Red's serious demeanor, "This is _so __**cool**_!"

Shego almost fell over as Blue used that phrase. Instead of giving herself a pride injuring pratfall, she sat down on one of the trunks she hadn't been able to fit into the hovercraft. She stared at the two women, marveling as she remembered why the women were so familiar… And mentally kicked herself for not realizing it sooner. "Oh, my God… You two are The Masque Sisters, aren't you?" She had heard of them when she was a little girl, seeing that they lived in Go City, and were even within heroing distance from Go City when they moved to set up shop in Middleton.

Then, when she'd been thirteen, there had been an exposé in _Super's by the Fortnight_, a bi-weekly magazine put out by various organizations to compete with HenchCo's _Villain's Weekly_. That exposé was literally the only reason Hego had been able to talk her into the hero business in the first place, let along keep her in the hero business for as long as she had been. Well, the latter point had help when she'd met a woman she would lust for, love and make love to for just over two years… Before that love and passion became a half a decade of near loathing and agonizing pain.

"Yeah, kinda obvious, isn't it?" Red quipped, tapping her red mask with a tone dry enough for Shego to appreciate.

"You've heard of us?" Blue almost squealed, the thought of being known by someone outside of their area exciting her. "And you have superpowers! Ohmigawd this is so awesome!"

And with Blue's reaction, Shego had to fight to remember she was on a villainous mission. It was difficult, considering she was confronted with the two individuals that had been her heroes when she was younger. Her inner fangirl hoped - and the experienced thief and martial artist that was an expert at reading body launguage _knew_ - that Blue was interested in her, at least physically. And that self-same fangirl was fighting a ferocious battle to get out and squeal right along with the blue clad heroine. Her villainous side was trying not to panic, and at the same time, gauging how she could use the attraction she felt Blue had for her to her own advantage.

Her villainous paranoia somewhat won out. This duo _was_, in this time at least, somewhere between being the regional heroes like Team Go and the international heroes like Team Possible of their time, after all. And although they never managed to reach Princess' level of fame, they had been a semi-famous group when she'd barely been able to walk, up until she was about seven when they seemed to fall right off the face of the earth. She had idolized them, and followed their exploits, including stopping then Professor Hanz Demenz during his first foray into supervillainy in early April of 1984.

And if she was right about whom Red was… Her mind almost warped as she made connection after connection. The Masque Sisters had disappeared somewhere around mid-June or July of 1986… The reasons were never known, but it hadn't mattered, as by that time a few other heroes had shown up, and Global Justice had become more involved in stopping international crime as well as supervillains. It made sense, in a disturbing, horribly ironic way. Red had gotten pregnant wit-…

"So, um, what's your name?" Blue asked, idly toeing the attaché case.

"Schmitt," Shego grunted, holding a hand out to Blue, "Ailise Vande Schmitt."

_Why does that sound so familiar?_ Red asked herself, running a finger along her mask where her eyebrow would be. She dropped her hand in an almost exasperated manner when her partner spoke, sighing in quiet annoyance at the tone in her best friend's voice.

"Ailise…" Blue seemed to swoon as she turned the beautiful woman's name in her mind. Seeing this, Red grumbled something under her breath, shaking her head as if Blue had lost sight that this woman might just be their enemy. Blue's next comment drew a choking sound of laughter from Red, despite her own worries about the solidity of… Ailise's story, "That's so beautiful… It's Irish, isn't it?"

"Yup!' Shego chirped, "I'm named after my grandmother… My late grandmother… I… She was all the direct family I had left, so when she passed, I kinda dropped out of school for a year… Then I ran into and was helping my ex…" Shego sighed, picking up her duffle and slowly opening it, showing that she wasn't intent on drawing a weapon or the like. She fished out the modified Kimmunicator, turning it on as if for the first time in months, "I hope this has a charge… Oh, good! Anyway, I was tutoring him in French, because he was convinced the French had taken over the world in the future… Um… It's _March thirteenth_?" she squealed in an unfeigned panic.

"Um, duh?" both Red and Blue said at once.

"That… That _bastard_!" Shego growled, her breathing heavy and frustrated. She mentally gave a huge sigh of relief as the modified Kimmunicator got a strong enough signal to start autohacking and uploading the information she'd need to start establishing herself in this time. She'd still follow Drakken's advice and upload in both physical manners as soon as possible, but for now it would have to do, as she had other concerns.

Shaking her head slightly, she continued to growl darkly towards the future and her employer - _ex_-employer, she reminded herself - wherever he was. _A whole lot of good it'll do me! I only have six weeks if I want to go through with this! Drakken, you _moron_, how could you screw something like entering a date up?"_

"What?" Blue asked, her eyes wide underneath her mask.

"He kept me at his damn underground house over in Go City!" Shego lied smoothly, "Convinced me that he needed me, and kept me so out of the loop I thought it was January..." If she read the two women correctly, they believed her despite – or perhaps because of - the complete ludicrousness of her claim. "I was supposed to be enrolling in University of Colorado Upperton in January… And some advance classes at MIST…"

"What's your major?" Red asked, honest sympathy and curiosity finally breaking through her shell of semi-professional paranoia.

"Double majored in Child Development and Psychology over in GCU after high school, with a minor in Business," Shego said honestly, "Finished the psych degree, but I'm continuing in Child Development and taking a Business major over at UCU, minoring in Electronics… For the latter, I'm supposed to take classes at MIST for some reason?"

"Yeah, it's a shared campus, which I'm sure they forgot to mention just like with me!" Red nodded with a laugh, finally relaxing a little in the seemingly older woman's presence, "Some of the diagnostics and practical studies for MRI and Radiological courses are over at MIST, and all vocational technology courses are over there."

"And what're you studying, Red?" Shego asked, dropping her voice, just a little bit, to enhance its huskiness and lowering her lids ever so slightly. Not to be openly seductive, but subtle, almost subliminal.

"Um," Red answered, as if she'd almost caught Shego's subtle antics. The thief held her breath as Red cocked her head slightly, then shrugged, "I'm studying to be a Neurosurgeon. My mom wanted me to go into politics, but I don't think I could handle the stress." Red shrugged again, and Shego barley stopped the sharp laugh in the back of her throat as her earlier assumption was proven correct, and driven home as Red removed her mask.

The woman's piercing blue eyes bored deep into Shego's emerald gaze in a disturbingly familiar, challenging manner. Shego again held a laugh in, but her eyes danced with amused intrigue as she once again looked the red-head up and down, _Like mother, like daughter, huh? Who'd a'thunk it?_

Shego responded in kind as Red stepped over and held her hand out to Shego, "Anne Credible… And I trust that lightshow of yours is something you'd prefer to keep a secret?"

"Yup," Shego nodded grudgingly.

"Well, I, for one, would like to hear about that sometime…" Anne continued in a seemingly friendly manner, "For now, Hot Hands, since we know a secret about you, can you keep our secret?"

"Hot Hands?" Blue asked in a considering tone, before snorting a brief laugh, "Not bad, Anne…"

"Um," Shego said, barely suppressing a laugh of her own, but letting a sardonic smirk come across her face. "Yeah, as far as the secret? Sure, not a problem. Um… As for the light show? It's a… Really long story, I guess you could say?" Shego, underneath the smirking face she shared with the women, was shocked at how attractive Anne was as a young woman.

Granted, she'd been hot, the phrase MILF coming unbidden to Shego's mind, especially as a forty something mother of three! But seeing her now, and in the incredible shape she appeared to be in, Shego was taken aback. _Well, I know where Princess got it from…_ she concluded, a warm, surprisingly honest smile spreading across her face, _Hell, this might not be so bad after all!_

"Pleasure's mine, believe me!" Shego quipped, letting Anne's hand go with a gentle caress that spread a subtle, apparently unnoticed shiver up Anne's arm. The sound of Blue's mask coming off pulled the thief's attention towards the shorter, shapelier woman, and Shego's mouth almost dropped open, her mind pierced with a white hot poker on several levels.

Standing before her was the woman that, as she had earlier remembered, inspired her more than anyone to keep at hero work even when she'd been about to give it up. And who later had become the bane of her existence, right behind Team Possible. The woman who had unintentionally drug her sixteen year old mind, kicking and screaming, to the realization that she didn't care about the physical sex of the person she was with, nor what sex they considered themselves, but the _person_ she was with.

Standing there, mask removed was a woman she had been deeply in both lust and love with for two years… Two wonderful, fulfilling years; before a simple misunderstanding led to an overreaction, which then turned into a seething, mutual hatred between them. Whose two eyes were no longer the single, mysterious and guarded fragment of obsidian Shego had become used to, but two eyes glowing like polished onyx and dancing with mirth as she, like Anne, stared deep into Shego's own gaze. "Hi, Ailise," Blue said, extending her hand again, "Elisabeth Director, at your service!"

_I hate to borrow one of Princess' catch phrases,_ Shego wailed to herself as she took the extended hand, trying not to tremble as her already raw emotions almost overcame her, _But _this_ is _**so**_ the goddamn drama!_

**Author's Notes**

And there's chapter two! Hope I wasn't _too_ obvious about who was who earlier. ^_^ As well, I hope I got across the emotional turmoil Shego's been going through, and didn't bog it down or make it too flowery and overwrought.

Obviously, there's a lot of emotions and hormones flying about. And, really, would that be too surprising? A twenty-two year old Anne Possible, sorry, _Credible_, and a twenty-one year old Betty Director, teammates and best friends, with obvious interest bouncing back and forth between them? Both dressed in uniforms similarly as skintight as Shego's own? Not to mention Shego being there? Yeah, hormone overload, to be sure!

Of course, it remains to be seen what, exactly, Shego's goin' to do with this revelation. Will she follow through with Drakken's plan? Will she follow another plan? Will something else come along to draw her in a completely different direction altogether? I, the writer of this fic, am in a similar situation to you readers, as I have only the vaguest idea!

This story is, and shall remain, very organic. I have various scenes already solidly in mind, but the events leading up to them, and following, are very vague. As events unfold, some of those very scenes so solidly in mind may never come to pass. I hope not, because I _like_ those scenes, but when you let yourself write a story in an… Instinctual manner, I guess you could say, things, like life, can change with the slightest provocation.

As always, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and that you're enjoying the story. Until next time, keep up the reading and writing!


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Forward**

Sorry for the über late update… _ Unfortunately, some RL stuffs came up… First, I finally made some progress on dealing with my late uncle's estate after six years of rather painful waiting. Then I had to prep for a trip to the Otakon anime convention with my fiancée, known on the KP Forum IRC chat as amers, and our friends Neo the Saiyan Angel (read her stuff, it rocks…!) and her fiancée, Kitpup.

Last chapter, there was a question asked by the reviewer Pesterfield for the last chapter, about "Red's" thoughts on "Blue's" build… While this will be expanded on and explained later, it has to do with how many women view lifting weights and what it does to their bodies. But, honestly, if you didn't grow up in the 80s, or you don't hear the reactions some people have for things like this, this comment prolly didn't make as much sense as it does to me. But, as I said, this (and some other things that might not make sense to someone that didn't live or grow up through the 80s) will be explained and expanded upon later, so I ask that ya bear with me.

And finally… Chapter three! I added a bit more than was originally contained in the chapter, both as it made the chapter flow better (despite being nearly a 'Neb unit before the Author's Forward and Author's Notes), and as an apology for being so late. ^_^;; As always, I hope you enjoy. ^_^

**AD AD AD AD**

"You're sure they went to the abandoned silo field southwest of Chugwater, not the one connected to F.E. Warren?" the man hummed into his communications device, bringing his five man stealth VTOL into a hover at a little less than five thousand feet. He activated the VTOL's surveillance suite and zoomed in on the entrance of the facility.

The forward looking infrared, or FLIR camera finally picked up The Masque Sister's vehicle, hidden as it was and now buried under a thin blanket of snow, and he knew they'd been in place for some time. The engine radiated no heat, and even with the unseasonably cold, sub-zero degrees Fahrenheit air temperature, had they been there less than an hour, some residual heat should have remained.

"I'm…" several tense seconds passed before the man's contact answered again, "Yes, I'm sure, Mr. Masquerade. Granted, they're the next best thing to part of the same overall installation, but after the nuclear disarmament treaties, this entire silo field was shut down. But, from what I see on the real time feed of their map coordinates, they're there alright, and have been for at least two hours now…"

"Which is about how long those two would take to dismantle four or five warheads…" the supervillain known as Masquerade muttered, thinking aloud.

"Well, sir," his contact said quietly, "It's possible. They went in with a full rad-kit, as well as a Type-IV toolbox, with a Type-III toolset."

"Indeed?" he asked, a pleased smile coming to his face. "Thank you very much, my dear Mr. Snoop. Even if this doesn't pan out, you'll get double your normal bonus for your efficiency."

"Thank you, sir!" the man whispered intensely, pride evident in his voice, "We can only hope this is what we need to finish this charade…"

"The time is coming soon enough, Mr. Snoop…" Mr. Masquerade murmured as he disconnected the call. "Yes indeed," he continued in a musing tone, "The time to go into business for myself is coming soon enough…"

He settled his VTOL into a two mile orbit around the vehicle before slipping into the small crew compartment to don his organization's latest rapid insertion gear: the Blast Suit. Looking like cross between a hard wingsuit and a SCUBA tank, it was the first truly practical jetpack system to date.

Not even Global Justice had made quite the correct modifications to modern wingsuits to make it practical. Nor had any of their thinktanks come up with a turbine engine powerful enough to do what this suit was designed to do. However, thanks to a contact of his at the Middleton Institute of Science and Technology, he'd acquired, or more accurately, had arranged the theft of the designs for a small turbine capable of immense thrust for a relatively small size and fuel investment.

The same source had also designed the secondary thrust system, a superbly efficient rocket and fuel combination, which had been stolen at the same time. Used in his organization's line of quick escape Wingpacks, as he had decided to call them, they offered extreme maneuvering capability, two seconds of initial thrust at five Gs and five minutes of cruising thrust at just two Gs. Not to mention almost ten minutes of lateral gliding from ten thousand feet, even for a ground trooper fully loaded. _I really must give Mr. Falsetto an increase to his retainer fee. Seeing the relation between the two technologies and getting them _both_ for me was simply _brilliant_ on his part!_

If he had to, he would use this to escape the bane of his existence. He was quite certain, however, that he wouldn't need the escape aspect of his Blast Suit. After all, he was the best weapons dealer in the world! And to date, the two barely post teenaged girls had never caught him, even after Global Justice had begun helping to track him down.

_And this little jaunt of theirs, _he thought with a malicious gleam in his eye,_ Will net me everything I need to sever my ties with that useless organization once and for all!_ He gingerly stepped back into the cockpit and settled down into the pilot's seat, prepared to follow The Masque Sisters until the most opportune time to strike. He was often impatient, and normally had to force himself to wait; this time, however, it was a non-issue. He did _not_ want the US military tracking him down for attacking someone on their property, after all.

**AD AD AD AD**

"Wait..." Shego said after shaking Betty's hand, not having to play up her shock at all, "Betty Director as in State Varsity decathlon champ from freshman through senior year, 100 and 400m champ Junior AND Senior years, and competitive enough in _men's_ hammer toss to get second overall senior year?"

"You went to school with us at Go City High?" Anne asked worriedly, cocking her head and trying to fix Shego's face with her memories.

"No," Shego lied smoothly, old feelings of attraction and admitted fangirl tendencies fighting wounds to her heart that were almost as long standing, "I went to West Valley City, but her reputation kinda precedes her, y'know?"

"Annie wasn't exactly a slouch in track and field either…" Betty said with a salacious wink to Anne, who looked away slightly and blushed.

Despite her own mixed feelings, Shego filed the little display away for later use, even as she wanted to slap herself for missing the obvious. _Of course, Dr. D. didn't tell me she was Anne _Credible_ until just before he left me here, so it makes sense I never made the connection…_ Even to her the rationalization sounded somewhat thin, but with what she had to work with now, she'd take whatever she could get.

"Well, I wasn't _bad_…" Anne admitted. When she thought Shego's head was turned far enough away, she shook her head in a scolding manner at her friend, nodding with subtle pointedness at the now mint hued woman standing next to them.

Shego smirked, having caught the motion out of the corner of her eye. She let herself laugh, and even though her pride rebelled, she let her inner fangirl win the battle with her old emotional pain. Doing that, however, left her with a completely different fight: not getting too hyped up like she had the _first_ time she'd met Betty Director. "Well, yeah, Anne Credible, varsity cross country and long distance in track, helped win the state title for Go City three years in a row…"

"Yep!" Anne confirmed cheekily, "And not to sound _too_ full of myself, but I got state champ in cross country senior year, placed high sophomore and junior year, _and_ took several firsts in track and field…"

"Two-mile, Five K and Ten K, right?" Anne nodded, and Shego smiled at her, "I thought so, but I wasn't sure…" She glanced coyly between the two of them, before her gaze settled on Betty, her smile becoming a touch embarrassed, "I ran track and field, did pretty good, too, but you two blew _everyone_ on our team away! Hell, everyone in general…"

"Well…" Betty flushed slightly as she reached up to rub at the back of her neck, "I guess?" she finished lamely, drawing a chuckle from Anne and a very friendly smile from Shego at how cute the auburn haired woman could be when she decided to act bashful.

Immediately following the warm flush that spread through her belly at the site, the thief felt a spike of concern as her stubborn pride reminded her of the mission Drakken had given her. She knew what she should be doing, what her pride was screaming she _had_ to do, but couldn't fight the instinct that kept her attention on Betty. As if to reinforce the strength of said instincts, her eyelids drooped of their own free will, her voice becoming a bit huskier, "I always thought _you_ were amazing…"

Anne frowned, jealousy nipping at the edge of her thoughts, especially with the inkling that the woman in front of them was a fangirl of Betty's. _I'm _not_ jealous!_ Anne lambasted herself as she realized she was feeling just that. _I'm _just _worried about this woman's story, that's _all_!_ She knew she was lying to herself, but she couldn't help it. Having an aggressively out lesbian for a mother like Anne did could make nearly anyone anxious about being attracted to the same sex; especially a woman that had been her friend for literally more than a decade.

Not that she thought she'd ever admit that fact out loud. Sure, she'd admit to being curious, profoundly so in point of fact! But she was loathe to admit it in such a way as to get back to her mother; the woman was an absolute demon when it came to teasing people, especially those she loved or considered family. So, in part to prove her own self control to herself, and to keep any breath of a thought of a rumor in the bag, she opened her mouth to try and bring the subject back to more important matters.

Unfortunately for her, that was when she saw her best friend in the world blushing. Blushing! Anne had _never_ seen Betty blush, not even when the red-head's own mother had teased the auburn haired woman mercilessly. It was like an ice cube down the back, and against her better judgment, Anne found herself liking the woman, even if she didn't like the obvious attention she was giving Betty.

"So, Betty," Shego asked in a surprisingly coy fashion, leaning in ever so slightly towards Betty, "Is that cutie Justin Flagg going to USU, or are the rumors of him being gay and moving to San Fran true?"

"He was kinda cute, wasn't he?" Betty asked vaguely, glancing towards Anne with a knowing wink, "And no, he isn't gay at all! In fact, he's engaged to a girl he met between junior and senior years when his parents took him to Boise State to check out the campus!"

Anne rolled her eyes, remembering all of the women that had thrown themselves at Justin. As she thought back, though, something about the brunette's questions brought her back to her earlier concerns about the story. Something about her name in connection with Justin. Then, almost as if reading Anne's mind and trying to distract her, the woman calling herself Ailise sighed.

"Bummer…" Shego muttered, putting some feeling into the declaration. "I mean, it'd explain why neither Cher nor I could get a date with him, if he was already with a college chick before getting out of high school!"

"Oh, you could say that." Betty nodded with a chuckle, "Lots of the girls were bummed after they saw how well he filled out over the summer and came back no longer single!"

"I'm sure…" Shego mused, raising an eyebrow slightly. "I still remember how bright he blushed when Cher accidentally fell out of her top during that last meet... And yes, it was an accident, believe it or not!" she laughed as Betty gave her an incredulous look, leaning towards the shorter woman slightly. Anne noticed that while the woman's voice didn't deepen further, but there was a barely noticeable addition to the huskiness, and her eyes drooped ever so slightly more than they had been.

Anne again felt that irrational surge of jealousy at the attention the woman was giving Betty, attention her partner didn't seem to notice. _Then again, she almost never notices that kind of attention, unless it's beaten into her like it was by a certain exchange student last semester!_ Or like their friend and former track teammate Justin, who had never seemed to notice the brunette and her blonde friend from West Valley City flirting with him.

_Wait a minute… Cher… That sounds right, so she must be referring to that brunette… Her name was… Cherish, yeah, Cher for short…_ Anne turned away from her friend and the stranger slightly, so she wasn't distracted by her own feelings as she contemplated, _And her and her friend would always flirt mercilessly with poor Justin in senior year… Cherish and… Oh what was her nam-…_

Then it hit her like a linebacker running full tilt: the name of the other girl had been Ailise Vande Schmitt! This woman could _not_ be Ailise! Ailise was shorter, _blonde_, and while she had a similarly built face, her face had been softer, less angular. And the blonde had a less athletic musculature and wider hips! Not to mention the fact that, if she was the same Schmitt Anne suddenly thought she was, she died when-…

Anne scowled briefly at how thoroughly she had been drawn in by the woman's line. And a line was what it had to be! Even if the woman was giving an accurate account of the last track meet where Anne and Betty had competed with West Valley City, she _couldn't_ be the woman she claimed to be!

Smirking with new found strength fueling her paranoia, she leaned back easily on her left leg, cocking her right slightly towards the woman standing between her and Betty. Her partner did not miss the sudden change in attitude, or the subtle change to a fighting stance. She allowed her gaze to slide from Ailise to Anne in a natural fashion as she mentioned a particularly tight race that day in the long distance. As Anne had hoped, the woman turned towards her as well, apparently unaware that Anne was ready to strike her without any prior warning whatsoever.

"So… Ailise, was it?" Shego nodded, and despite the subtlety of the setup, immediately realized she was in trouble. She heard the barest whisper of boot soles changing position behind her as Betty moved into a stance, but held her instincts on a tight rein. She knew it best to allow this to play out as if unaware of the danger she was now in. "I have a few questions, if you don't mind?"

Shego let out a sigh, smiling sardonically, "Sure, Anne… Sorry, but… I really, _really_ admire Betty here…"

"So I noticed," Anne pronounced in a sotto tone of voice, before continuing in an almost happy tone, "Anyway, if I may… What happened to the long as hell blonde hair you had at our last meet?"

Shego barely restrained a triumphant smirk as the question allowed her to segue into the most difficult part of her plan and the cover for it. Instead, she schooled her face into an expression of neutrality. She thought back quickly over her life and drew upon one of the most physically painful, terrifying memories she could to help her force the needed emotions to her face, body language and voice. Carefully, she raised a hand and pointed one of her fingers, letting a gentle flame of plasma dance on just the fingertip, "This… I… My ex determined it was from a comet that hit my car back in August…"

"A comet…" Anne and Betty both deadpanned, Anne's face full of incredulity, Betty's face dropping into a shocked, uncertainly sympathetic expression.

"Yeah, or a meteor, he wasn't sure which." Shego muttered, dousing her plasma and letting her arm drop and bringing the other in front of her to clasp them together in a pained, almost submissive manner. "Anyway… He _claimed_ it was a green and red comet that came down on the eighth…"

"And it did… What, exactly?" Betty asked, her tone indicating she was beginning to lean towards the same paranoia as Anne's, and Shego knew she had to speak fast.

"It hit my car." Shego said, glancing away from both women and encircling herself with her own arms. She shuddered as she described an altered version of events that happened to her in a treehouse hundreds of miles, and a dozen years, away. "And me… My jaw was shattered when part of the steering linkage blew through the firewall… The meteor itself followed, but was lower; it hit my legs, shattering both my femurs up to the hip socket, my pelvis and three vertebrae. Blew off my right leg from the knee down, left from just a little below that… And I was on fire. Literally, or so it seemed." She raised a hand and lit up, staring down into the dancing, flamelike plasma.

"I…" she paused, swallowing and dousing her plasma before lowering her hands to her sides, "I'd regenerated most of the damage when I came to… Or at least the first time I remember coming to." She grimaced, shaking her head as if the information was irrelevant in the retelling, "I looked like an anorexic, and my hips were a bit thinner… Like, a dress size and a half, and my face a little longer… But I had my lower legs back, my jaw was no longer shattered, and the skin had all regrown…

"But my body had to get the bone to repair itself from somewhere, and it went for my hips first," Shego paused, contemplating something, then nodded slightly, "I guess the regeneration is somewhat intelligent… After my hips had narrowed to where they are now, it went after the rest of my skeletal structure… I guess the regen realized I needed my hips at least somewhat intact, so… Who knows?" She let a slight, deprecation filled laugh escape her lips as she ran her hands over her hips, "I kinda like my hips better like this anyway!"

"Who found you?" Anne muttered, see-sawing between believing and disbelieving this strange woman's even stranger tale. And belief was quickly winning out over disbelief, especially with the description of what had happened meshing so well with radio news blurb that about Ailise Vande Schmitt's supposed death.

"No one…" Shego barked a bitter laugh, remembering how she had been thought dead by her family and their so called rescuers. At least until she'd regenerated enough to crawl out of the crater where the old oak tree and treehouse had been. How they'd missed her she'd never know, but she had suspicions until one of the rescuers had later explained things to her. And he had been right. _A burnt body in a pile of wood could look just like part of the ruble, and they weren't gonna clean things up until after the weekend…_

The thought led to more thoughts of the event… The agony of her jaw fixing itself, lengthening slightly due to gravity pulling on the mostly intact lower mandible… The flesh and hair regrowing… The legs that had been gone below the knee slowly regrowing, and lengthening as she crawled the oh so long hundred and fifty yards towards the road… Only to be found by the first member of her former home's clean up crew. Seeing a naked fourteen year old girl, her body emaciated, dying of thirst and malnutrition as her body cannibalized itself to-...

She shook the thought off, her body shivering like a dog shaking off water, before continuing. "At least… Not for a few days… Aparently, I'd been blown a couple hundred feet clear of the car when it happened. Then I'd drug myself even further _away_ trying to get _back_. Unfortunately, I'd crawled to the top of this long ass coulee, and a thunderstorm came up… The flash flood washed me all the way to the bottom of the coulee, and washed away any evidence I'd survived to the rescue teams. Of course, they probably found what was left of my legs and figured the rest got incinerated."

"So…" Anne drew out, "You're like that one comic book character? Cut off his arm and it's back a few minutes later?"

Shego barked out a sharp, humorless laugh, "Hell no! It's fast, but it's not like some comic book hero. And draining as hell. 'Member, I said I looked anorexic, and that my hips were narrow?" both of the other women nodded, and she continued, "And what I said about my body eating itself to repair itself? When I realized I could move, I tried to stand… Apparently, when I drug myself along, I'd stretched the bones in my legs out enough to give me a couple inches of height. Threw my balance off and I fell back over…"

She sighed and balled her fists, holding them close to her face. "I was on my back, stretching my arms towards the sky. I was scared… So I panicked, and screamed my head off, y'know, to try and get help? I… Kinda launched a ball of my plasma into the air. Burnt my fingers so bad I don't really have fingerprints anymore… My… Ex found me…"

"Is he who determined what happened to you?" Anne asked, concern and awe at the woman's intestinal fortitude visibly warring with skepticism on her face.

"Yeah…" Shego smiled softly, because part of it was true. She had been told by the scientists that had examined her and Team Go that she had gone through puberty and all of her growth spurts in the span of a month and would be stuck at five foot six for the rest of her life. But later on, when she was twenty, she'd had another. It was, of all people, Drakken that had pieced together what had happened, by looking at her skeleton in x-rays and MRI scans. "He… Kinda snuck some time in GCU Medical Center's CAT scan and MRI machines… I was barely five foot six when I got hit, now I'm five eleven…"

"That why ya stayed with him as long as you did?" Betty queried quietly, "Cause he helped ya?"

Shego nodded, looking around the silo without really seeing it. Reliving the past - even for a lie - had its costs, _especially_ after the Moodulator incident. The last several months had been a slowly building hell of feelings, confusion, and memories. Sometimes she had dreams, good memories meandering through her mind in her sleep…But usually she suffered an agonizing reliving of events best left forgotten, or heart wrenching actions she would do nearly anything, even kill, to have a chance at changing.

And here she was, reliving it for two strangers; the hitching breaths and misty eyes were only the physical manifestation of that deeper, emotional toll. Yet still, Shego pushed on; she had to make these two women believe her. She just _had_ to…

"He was a goof, and a nerdy as hell one, but he was… Nice… I asked him if he wanted a relationship, he… He seemed interested… And he helped me out; gave me food, shelter… Helped me deal with losing my Nana. I mean, Nana was the only family, direct family, that I could go to… My uncle's over in Okinawa right now with the Navy, and the other side of my family, they might have helped, but I didn't want to worry them… Or cause problems for my cousin's husband, for that matter! Especially since, well, most of my family's involved, or at least was involved with the mob, stuff like that…"

Betty nodded, as if something suddenly made sense, "Your dad was Big Willie Schmitt, wasn't he?"

"Yeah…" Shego looked at her sharply, shock evident in her voice that Betty had made the connection.

"Um," Anne said, swallowing slightly at the intensity in Shego's gaze, "There… Were suspicions…" the brunette cocked her head slightly, and Anne sighed, uncertain if she should go on but knowing she had to now that she'd spoken up, "Your… Apparently unfounded death announcement was on the radio, Ailese… It was suspected that your car was wired with explosives by members of the Bruno mafia family as a way of tying up 'loose ends'…"

"Not surprised, really…" Shego quipped, her tone brittle. She drew in a long breath, then sighed it out and lowered her head, shaking it sadly, "Well… Mom left him, but she died in an accident a few years back. Probably more of the same… And if you know who my dad was you know what happened to him…" Anne and Betty nodded, Betty opening her mouth as if to speak, but stopped herself and let Shego continue at her own pace.

"Anyway," Shego continued after a moment, nodding thankfully to them for letting her take her time, "My ex… He studied the power I got, helped me learn to control it. I mean, he was smart, funny, he seemed so… Trustworthy… I'm pretty sure I love..." She paused as a surge of powerful, acidic hatred swirled and fought with her feelings for the blue mad scientist, and hurriedly amended her statement, "_Loved_ him… Now? I don't think so! At least, not anymore!"

"'Cause he left you behind while he went into a possible future-…" Anne began with surprising heat in her tone, but flinched as the pale thief growled suddenly.

"Yes, the bastard!" Shego looked back and forth between the two women, her tone becoming as caustic as the unfeigned betrayal in her eyes, "He left me here, alone… Just like damn near everyone else in my life!"

The accusatory vehemence of her declaration caught even Anne off guard. When the pale woman had looked at her, there was a strange mixture of emotions, most notably fear and a soul deep, enraged pain. The fear quickly took prominence in the woman's eyes, however, and her voice took on a desperate tone, "Look, I know this is a lot to ask, but can I just… Can you two just take me somewhere, a hotel, whatever… I need to check in with the school, see if I even qualify anymore… I need to get some sleep! Some other things as wel-…"

"Ailise…" Anne said softly, hesitantly placing a hand on the dark haired woman's shoulder, "We have to report what we saw here to the agency that we help sometimes… We have to tell them about your ex, about you, and they'll want to talk to you and make sure you're not a threat. You can trust these people, Ailis-…"

"I…" Shego interrupted, sweat beading across her forehead at Anne's words of reassurance. _I can't get taken in, not now!_ she screamed at herself, her body tensing to fight and run if she needed to. "I don't know… I… What if…" More memories of her own past, of the weeks spent in a nameless lab, scientists and researchers trying to determine what her power was, how it worked, whether it would kill her or others… Whether it could be _passed along_ to another without killing the original holder of that power.

Panic, fueled by the real fear she had displayed only a moment before and the memories of being strapped on a table in that nameless lab flowed through her veins. The pale thief tensed, grabbing the hand Anne had placed on her shoulder and reaching out to grasp shoulder opposite of Anne's hand. Her grip was desperate and firm, painfully so as Anne winced, "Ailise!" Shego almost reacted without thinking, almost let her thief's instincts twist her body to throw the smaller woman into Betty, who was already moving up behind her, and run before they could stop her.

But her ever-present pride kept her from doing so quite yet. She was close, she knew. Close to convincing them, close to gaining their trust. _And then what, genius? Get thrown into a lab somewhere? Or if they can _somehow_ keep you out of one, follow Drakken's plan? Do your own thing? Do you even have a clue _how_ to do your own thing anymore?_

Whatever she decided, she knew she had to remain here. She forced herself to keep up what was an act by the barest of measures, "But… What if they find out… What if the _government_ finds out? They'll try and figure out what I am now!" Her grip tightened slightly, then loosened, and tears flowed freely down her face as she concentrated on old, painful memories, old fears, "Please, I trusted Dr-… My ex… But, the government, they couldn't pass up somethi-…"

"Please," Betty whispered from just behind her, gently but firmly grasping her shoulders for emphasis, "Please trust us. The people we work with? They'd _never_ do something like that! Hell, they'd never even study the _manifestation_ of your powers without your consent!" The words, spoken with such conviction, from a voice Shego had once trusted, almost calmed her completely.

It was the same tone of voice an older Betty Director had used when a young Shay Gottlieb had begged her not to let some government run, deep black research group take her from her brothers again. The same strong, yet gentle hands that had assured, then held young Shay as she'd bawled her pain, her torment, and her soul deep fear into the woman's bosom. "And… I hate to say it this way, but if your story checks out and they try? They'll deal with The Masque Sisters, and some of their own people going rogue to help us!"

Shego stared into Anne's eyes, seeing a firm resolve and promise matching Betty's words shining with conviction as bright as a mountain sky. She glanced back at Betty, afraid to see the same resolve, and was shocked to see even stronger resolve reflected there. "Promise?" the word slipped out without conscious thought… To the same, if younger woman, just like it had so many years ago, and Shego hated herself for it.

Even so, the word was as desperate as a condemned innocent's plea for mercy. And as she stared into both of Betty's eyes, she saw they had changed from the warm, inviting onyx they had been scant minutes before into hardened twins of obsidian. Eyes as dark and hard as the _one_ eye she was so used to seeing.

This time, however, instead of one cold eye glaring in hatred at her, the frigid rage in Betty's seemed directed at the idea of someone violating the thief, of using her as a lab rat. _So familiar, but so different,_ the pale thief thought, _Why? How?_

Betty looked past her for the barest of moments to Anne. It was as if they shared a telepathic conversation in those brief seconds, and both nodded firmly. Shego felt a brief, soaring triumph as she realized they'd bought her story as Betty answered her. "Yes," both of them affirmed, Betty continuing, "We've got your back."

Her triumph was short lived. The crushing, emotional torrent she had opened swallowed that triumph as if a single stalk of wheat in a storm of locusts. Against her every instinct, Shego felt herself shaking with repressed sobs; and in that moment, after years of fighting to keep them imprisoned with every fiber of her being, those same emotions ripped free of the shackles by which they had been held.

_It's _just_ to keep up the act…_ she lied to herself, a lie that rang hollow all across her soul as years of heartache and hidden fears flowed out of her. Shego's knees weakened, then buckled, and she fell limply against Anne. Betty quickly moved in to help the red-head lower the pale woman to her knees.

Shego didn't notice; she didn't feel the gentle pats on her back as Anne hugged her, nor the soft cooing and gentle stroking along her hair as Betty tried to clam her. How could Drakken have brought her to this state? How could she let him bring her there? She shouldn't need anyone! And now, a woman she'd been sent back in time to betray, and a woman she herself had betrayed in her own past, were offering her not only help, but comfort… And protection from one of the only things she truly feared.

And as if Karma were punishing her with irony, she slowly realized that the two women were comforting her _despite_ being essentially strangers. Something she hadn't done since she was on Team Go. Something she never expected, nor asked, of anyone in her life, and these two women offered it so freely. _Just like Kimmie would have… And I'm supposed to destroy her by ruining her mother's chance at love…_

She felt a sickening ball of guilt trying to explode in her stomach. She was Shego! She shouldn't feel guilty about it; after all, her employer had given her a job to do! The employer she had finally admitted to herself she loved! She'd do anything for him… Would have done anything for him… But now? Now she felt betrayed… And guiltier than when a plasma encased thumb drove deeply into her beloved's eye….

A few seconds passed, seconds that Shego used to try and find another justification for her actions. When she found a target, she latched onto it: it was the Moodulator! It _had_ to be that damnable device! If Drakken had never gone after it, if it had never been attached to her neck? Then the dam of cold indifference stronger than any steel she'd erected to protect her heart would still stand strong!

But now, after everything… The Moodulator… Coming to grips with her feelings for Drakken… Drakken making and almost succeeding with a plan after leaving her out of the loop until the last moment… Kim Possible, one of the few people she respected saying she hated the thief before kicking her into a radio tower… Drakken leaving her behind in the past… And finally, the mother of Kim Possible and the woman she had once loved with everything in her soul were comforting her after knowing her less than a half hour…

After all that, it didn't matter what the source had been. The wall was breached, and from somewhere, so deep within her that she'd never consciously realized it was there, a question surfaced through years of self deception. _Should it even matter anymore? The plan, any of it? Was I ever truly what I claimed all that time ago when Betty offered forgiveness for what I'd done? When I threw her forgiveness back in her face by asking if it had been worth it for what she'd done to me? To… Us?_

The dismal questions settled like falling leaves into her thoughts. She was stuck in her past, which was now the future. No one would ever know of this, not now, so she could let it go. _Should_ let it go if she were to listen to her feelings.

Like the last cold winter wind, the raw emotion she unleashed flowed across her, carrying the promise of more than she dared hope, if only she reached for it. For now, she was too lost, and so she clung to the red-head in front of her, and let herself be lulled by the gentle rocking from Anne, and the gentle stroking of her hair and whispered assurances from Betty. _Drew… He left me behind… Should I care what he wants me to do? Should I just… Live my life here? I don't know what to do... Am I… Am I truly evil, if I can't follow this through? Have I ever been evil enough to do something this… Heartless?_

Those last, begged thoughts flitting about her heart, with an uncertainty so unlike her, were her last as sleep swiftly overtook her exhausted form.

**AD AD AD AD**

Shego was slowly drawn from her blissful, dreamless nap by a steady, soft rocking motion. She cracked open an eye just enough to look around, hoping that the memories flooding into her mind were just a bad dream. Unfortunately for Shego as she glanced around, she realized that,-.

indeed, she wasn't dreaming. She was torn between laughing and, frustratingly to her, another bout of bawling as she realized she was on Betty's back, being carried piggy-back style down the silo facility's long main hallway.

"Y'know," Shego muttered softly into Betty's ear, "As much as I don't mind a sexy woman carrying me, I think I can walk now…" The comment was stated without conscious thought, and with a sultry sincerity and tone that almost caused the the woman carrying her to trip from a misstep,

Again Shego found herself wanting to lambaste herself for speaking without thinking. If she followed through with Drakken's crazy plan, she was using her charm on the wrong woman! While still uncertain if she'd follow Drakken's plan for his purposes, she wouldn't mind having some fun with either of the two women she seemed to be stuck with. _Who knows,_ she smirked to inwardly, a way of getting back at Drakken and following through with it at the same time flashing through her head, _Maybe if things work out that way, the three of us could even come up with something so Princess could come to be anyway…_

She felt a blush creeping across her face, and glanced over where Anne was walking apace with them, and giving the thief a mild glower for the comment. Shego wanted to turn away and burry her face into Betty's hair, since it was longer than it had been during any of Shego's experience in her own past.

Then her blush deepened as she thought up a few other possible scenarios, since the thought was outside of her normal preferences. While she tended towards hedonism, she preferred to be monogamous with any given partner, and found blatant swinging distasteful on a personal level.

Not that she cared if others did it, not even her partner; whatever floated their boats was what floated their boats, so long as they didn't drag her along unless she wanted to be! But the idea of getting some attention from either the slim, athletic red-head, or the voluptuous, powerfully built woman she was clinging to, while possibly some other fun with Kimmie's future father wasn't exactly unappealing.

What had brought this thought about, she wasn't sure, but had a good idea where it had originated. She was, after all, living someone else's life, and she knew, no matter if she ultimately followed Drakken's plan or not, that she was staying here. Perhaps she was unconsciously trying to change herself on multiple levels, so she could not only fit into at least the basics of someone else's life, but actually follow through on her own nascent plans? She wasn't sure, and filed it away for later review. For now, she had more pressing matters, pleasant as they were; Betty had yet to relinquish her hold on Shego, and was standing there, staring back over her shoulder like a deer caught in a pair of headlights.

"So, Betts, wanna let me down?" Shego husked at her again, earning a more intense glare from Anne, who opened her mouth to snap at the thief. Fortunately, Betty speaking up saved both Anne and Shego from that potentially embarrassing situation.

"S-sure, Ailise!" Betty stuttered, Shego's tone and hot breath causing a shiver to run down her spine.

"Thank you, Betts." Shego commented with unfeigned sincerity as Betty stopped and loosened her hold on Shego's knees. Shego kept her hands on Betty's shoulders and gave a brief squeeze when she had her feet underneath her, then allowed her hands to ever so slightly caress the back of Betty's shoulders, drawing another, more noticeable shiver from the blue clad heroine.

_I've got to stop that if I really want to try the plan…_Shego muttered darkly to herself, _Or at least use it on the right woman…_Shego glanced over at Anne again and winked at her, her voice and the wink itself filled with salacious intent, "She's sensitive, isn't she?" She barely repressed a giggle as the other woman blushed as brightly as Kim Possible ever had.

"I-I wouldn't know?" Anne stammered, and Shego couldn't help the delighted giggle from escaping her lips at the halting admission. The red-head then glanced down, remembering that she held a silver attaché case in her hands, clasping it in front of her as if to hide her embarrassment.

"We, um… Hope you don't mind, but we kinda moved your stuff close to where we parked?" Anne asked, holding out the attaché case to the slightly mint hued woman. "Betty volunteered to move it, and I stayed to make sure you were okay…"

Shego's eyes widened slightly as she reached out to the attaché case, honestly surprised. She was, after all, quite unused to someone watching out for her. Part of her was repelled by both Anne's blushing admission and the thought of someone having to watch over her, while the other, larger part of her was giddy that the red-head had bothered.

"Thank you, Anne…" Shego whispered after a moment, her tone as warm as it had been with Betty a moment before. She reached her free hand out and briefly clasped one of Anne's. As she drew her own back to her, she allowed her index finger to languidly glide across the top of Anne's hand, between her first and middle knuckles and added ever so slight pressure as her finger passed the webbing between those knuckle's fingers.

Anne's eyes widened, the barest of gasps escaping her lips, even as Shego turned away from her to address Betty, "Thanks, both of you. I'm… Not used to people watching out for me, y'know?"

"N-no problem!" Anne chirped nervously, glancing at Betty almost helplessly.

"Yeah, no problem!" Betty agreed, but Shego could swear she heard a note of jealousy in the auburn haired woman's voice this time.

Shego had to hold in an evil smirk, knowing she was getting under their skins. It was moving a lot swifter than she'd expected, but with the sexual tension she felt between the two women, it didn't surprise her. Still, it wouldn't be good to make the two jealous, of her _or_ of each other, so she decided to try and dispel some of the tension in the air.

"Um, sorry if anything I've said bothers you two or… Um… If it causes any problems?" She glanced from Anne to Betty again, emphasizing what she was thinking with a little side-to-side shake of her head and a coy, embarrassed roll of her eyes. Shego was surprised to find that she was sincere, even if the comment had been intended to push her own goals. _Whatever they might end up being..._ she added in a bout of mental self-deprecation.

"Wha-…" Anne began, but Betty's surprised giggle startled her into silence, drawing both the red-head and Shego's eyes to her.

"No, no, nothing like that. Between us, I mean. Um…" Betty blushed, glancing at Anne, then continued in a rush, "I actually go that way but… Well, I don't want to speak for Anne, but I know she doesn't have problems with girls liking girls or being into her… Um… I mean, if you're…"

Shego chuckled this time, saving Betty as the blue clad heroine blushed at Anne's raised eyebrow, "I'm… You might call me the pendulum of love," she paused and affected an intentionally overdone French accent, "I swing botzth waysz!" She paused and glanced between them, her eyelids drooping slightly, "Though I do tend to lean more towards hot women than men."

Both other women laughed at her proclamations, relaxing as the humor flowed through all three women, "Okay, that works." Anne said, starting forward once again, "Besides, I'm pretty alright with women, even if they are into me…" she glanced at Betty in a seemingly innocent manner, but Shego picked up a certain intensity in the brief stare, before continuing, "Besides, my mom's a lez! Like, dyed in the wool, but she was never pushy about my choice of lifestyle or partner, and to be honest… I've never really thought about relationships beyond a few dates through high school."

"Yeah, disastrous dates!" Betty quipped, earning a strangled cry of protest from Anne as the red-head punched her in the shoulder playfully.

"They weren't that bad! And I dated Seth for a year!" Anne exclaimed, earning a snigger from Betty.

"And he never got past second base, either!" Betty blew a raspberry at Anne, who crossed her arms in a pout.

"Well, neither have any of your relationships!" Anne shot back, sniffing in a disdainful manner.

"Au contraire!" Betty chuckled, "I was pretty serious with Shizuki last year…" Betty sighed as she said that, a fond but slightly despondent smile on her lips, "Well, I got to kinda-sorta almost got third base with her once?"

"You don't kinda-sorta do things like that, Betts." Shego concluded flatly, the smile on her face dissipating any potential tartness from her tone, "Either you did or you didn't."

"Well… I started to, well…" She made a vague hand gesture, shaking her head slightly, "But she wouldn't go farther, 'cause she was worried about how things would work out when she moved back to Japan… Then she met some guy that was an exchange student from Kyoto, who lived, according to her, '…only a few dozen kilometers or so…' from where she grew up…"

"Oh, I'm sorry." Shego said with sincerity. She had heard from the Betty _she_ knew about the relationship, but only in passing. The look on this Betty's face was, as far as Shego could read, not the forlorn loss of _her_ Betty, but definitely melancholy.

"Eh, c'est la vie." Betty said with a rueful chuckle.

Before Betty could say anything more, Anne piped up, "Sorry to interrupt, but we're here. If you could, would ya get your stuff ready to be hauled up?" When Shego cocked her head, Anne pointed to the elevator, and the obviously harvested wiring. "They only left lighting in for the UN inspectors. After that's done, they'll harvest any remaining stuff they can and fill this place with concrete."

"I was wondering about that…" Shego smiled. She couldn't help, however, but to feel that something was off. The hairs on the back of her neck were standing up, and she understood why when she caught Anne giving Betty, who was about to offer Shego a hand, a severe, yet concerned look.

"Yeah," Betty sighed, leaning back on one leg in an almost defensive stance, her body tensing and her eyes hooding worriedly as she continued, "So we'll throw down a cargo net, since they cut the power, and we'll haul it up after it's ready? We have to go rearrange things in our ride…"

"Sure thing." Shego murmured, dredging up and placing a believable smile on her face, while knowing that there was something up between them. Despite being younger than the Betty that Shego had known, she had known _her_ Betty very intimately, and this younger Betty let even more of her emotions out through her body language. She knew, for instance, that Betty had let something slip, something she had kept hidden from her friend, and that the next few minutes were going to be painful for her.

Glancing at Anne, her concerns were confirmed, but there was more in the red-head's gaze. The paranoia Shego had seen before was back, but seemed more a cautious concern. _She'll be a tough nut to crack…_ Shego found herself thinking, and she winked at Anne again as the woman realized the thief was looking at her. She nodded slightly in Betty's direction as the auburn haired woman bent to pick up one of the smaller parcels Shego had brought to take it up with her.

Shego saw the paranoia dissipate slightly as Anne glanced at Betty's shapely derriere. She looked at Shego and gave her a bit of a joking glare, to which Shego waggled her eyebrows. The red-head's blush deepened, and Shego's eyes shot up as she realized that the blush was visible in the diamond shaped clear section of the heroine's catsuit. _Damn, she's so _cute_! Whether I do this job all the way or not, I think dealing with Anne Credible is going to be a blast!_

"Be right back!" Anne squeaked as she followed Betty, who was now moving purposefully towards the exit ladder. "Mask, 'Betts'…" Anne called out concernedly, drawing a quiet, reminiscent snort from Shego.

"Right," Shego called back, waving after the two of them, "I'll be waiting down here for the net!" Betty half-heartedly waved back with the hand now holding her mask, obviously agitated. Anne half turned and gave Shego an apologetic look as she donned her mask, shrugging helplessly before following her friend up the stairs.

"Wow, this just got complicated…" Shego muttered, shaking her head. "Oh, man, it's almost ten thirty? I'm not going to get _any_ sleep 'til tomorrow _night_!" She lamented as she glanced at the time on modified Kimmunicator's clock.

Shego glanced around and started gathering the last of her belongings; she sighed as she realized she was by herself, and for the third time that day she looked back over her life, as a by now familiar mental debate started down paths becoming well worn indeed. Her pride, her - admittedly reawakened - libido and her own emotional turmoil were warring with her earlier realization she could start over here in this time.

And, she had to admit, she still felt revolted by the idea of essentially killing Kim Possible by such an underhanded means. She had never killed, as a thief or superhero. She had come close, but had never done the deed, and, she admitted, didn't want to start now. Yet, she had to admit, Anne was an incredibly attractive woman, even if Shego's preference was towards women like Betts…

And seeing that Betty Director was not only such a close friend of Anne's, but also her partner in superhero work, was shocking to say the least. _It explains so much…_Shego nodded to herself as she picked up a particularly heavy trunk like it was an empty cardboard box, _She told me when we first started… Seeing each other… That her heart'd been broken by someone once, and that she wasn't sure if she could ever love long term again… And then she started to love me like I did her, before she told me I was someone she shouldn't love like that… Now some of that actually makes sense! Especially why she was so hateful after…_

"Don't think about it!" Shego quietly growled out loud, slapping herself viciously across the face. "Different time, different woman!" She was about to go on with her self recrimination, but stopped herself when she heard Betty and Anne approaching the elevator's open access hatch.

After a moment, a rope dropped down from above. She glanced up to see Betty getting ready to toss down the cargo net. Although she could no longer see the face, she was familiar with the set of the younger woman's mouth, and new she had to bee feeling rather glum at that moment. _Maybe I can help her with that? I've got the feeling I'm going to love getting to know this Betty Director… At least, if I tell Dr. D. to go take a flying leap, metaphorically, anyway…_

"Thanks, Bright Eyes!" she called up, mentally slapping herself as she said the pet name she used to use for Betty years earlier, before the eyepatch. Her heart soared and sank at the same time as she saw a blush spreading up under the other woman's mask and the hesitant smile that followed it. Instead of contemplating her potential problems, she decided to make a plan for the rest of the night. Hopefully, she could talk the two women into letting her skate on their government contacts debriefing her tonight. Not likely, but a woman could dream…

She made quick work of securing her belongings to the cargo net, and tying it off to the rope. "If ya give me a minute, I can get up there and give ya a hand. This probably weights about four hundred, four fifty easy…"

"Okay!" Betty called back, nodding in agreement, "I keep telling her to get a winch on our ride, but-…"

"Fine, fine, I get the need for it!" Anne protested as Shego walked towards the exit ladder, "I just don't want to deal with that idiot, Lipsky!"

Shego almost tripped as she reached the bottom of the ladder. She glanced back to see if either of them were watching. Seeing that they weren't, she hurriedly climbed up the ladder, trying very, very hard not to think about Drakken or any of the other Lipsky clan. There was only so much she could take, after all…

**AD AD AD AD**

Mr. Masquerade smirked knowingly as he watched the Masque Sisters lowering first a rope and then a cargo net into the disguised supply hatch of the missile base. He was somewhat surprised to see another woman come out to join them; probably an agent from the UN or some European country, if the cut of the catsuit were any indication. _Hopefully I can get a good look at her when there's light instead of just the FLIR imagery…_ he thought as he contemplated the scene. If her face matched what he could make out of her body…

He watched for another thirty seconds, before crowing aloud in delight, his mildly amorous thought forgotten. "That pretty much seals it!" he concluded as he saw both the powerfully built Blue Masque and this obviously powerful woman straining to pull up whatever they'd put into the cargo net. He smirked as Red Masque assisted with the awkward, heavy cargo, knowing from his own research, and the brute force needed to haul the cargo net up, that she was the weakest of the three.

Based on this, and knowing how fast she was, he knew that she would have to be the first dealt with, as her speed could keep him busy enough for Blue, or this new woman, to get the drop on him. He did have a possible cure for that, and he made sure the "splat grenades", filled with a viscous, sticky liquid that would immobilize her, hit their mark.

He watched with interest as the two stronger women had lugged the cargo net over to the Masque Sister's vehicle, a heavily modified Suburban. He knew many of the specifications of the vehicle, thanks to his position within the agency they worked with, but not everything, so he would have to bide his time and keep observing.

As he watched, he chuckled with glee when he saw not only the steel sided attaché case, but a huge, steel sided toolbox. When it was close enough to the Masque Sisters' vehicle for the interior light to shine on it, he concluded that the trunk didn't just look designed for heavy loads, but was purpose built just for that. Along the bottom were steel casters and caster anchors that looked like forged steel as opposed to stamped.

It also matched what he'd been told about the Masque Sisters having a Type-VI toolbox, though, looking into the vehicle itself, it seemed as if they'd brought along two. No matter, it's quite possible that old get in charge of GJ added it at the last second on her own authorization, which would not have had time to get to his trusted Mr. Snoop.

The toolbox was designed to carry not only the Type-III toolset, which was used to remove and disarm warheads, but enough room and shielding to stow two or even three small to middling warheads worth of nuclear material. His guestimate on the time it would take them had been off, as they had obviously only used one trunk, but he didn't mind. It only added to the anticipation

From what the regular telephoto lens could see, the third woman was most definitely a European. He quickly concluded she was a liaison to get the material to 'safe hands', and had probably been required to follow dozens of procedures that were needlessly time consuming. The extra time it had taken them now made sense. It didn't matter, however. _One_ warhead's worth of nuclear material would make him wealthy enough to follow through with his plans. If they had two, or even better, _three_?

He laughed wickedly as the three women finished stowing the gear, noticing that, indeed, they had come prepared for more than two warheads. He made note of the location of the box they'd brought back up within the truck, as well as a couple of other things that had come up from down below. _Who knows, perhaps that woman has some documentation that certain… People would pay dearly for…_

His laugh continued in a slow, low key fashion, the manner of the laughter much like that of a man savoring particularly fine bourbon. Mr. Masquerade prided himself on his lack of the melodramatics so many of the megalomaniacal villains seemed prone to. He was, after all, a businessman first and foremost; being a supervillain merely added the nice little bonus of credibility in his ultimate plans for the world.

**Author's Notes**

And so goes Chapter Three. This chapter was, to me, quite the challenge. I'm told by some people that I'm good at portraying emotion, but I often feel I'm overdoing it, hamming it up, or outright laying on the melodrama with a trowel… The challenge was to get everything I felt necessary across without bogging it down in needless over description or excess wordiness. I hope I've succeeded, but I'll be relying on you readers to let me know one way or the other!

And now there's the seemingly mysterious Mr. Masquerade… A man watching our heroes and favorite thief from afar, with obvious ill intent. Hopefully, I've portrayed him with enough intrigue as to be interesting, without being too blatant as to exactly who he is.

Aside from that, I have a chunk of the next chapter written, and events for the next 'month' or so in fic fairly well laid down, so hopefully this'll be moving along apace. Until next, enjoy this and all the other wonderful fanfics out there!


	4. Chapter 4

The trip back to Colorado was going a lot faster than Shego had expected. Interstate 25, though only suffering occasional patches of snow and ice, could be a dangerous route this time of year. So far, they were already over twenty five miles from Chugwater, several miles before that had been on secondary, tertiary, and even _farmer's_ roads. And they were barely over twenty five minutes into the trip. _She drives like I do… Though I dunno if I'd drive a beast like this the way she is if I wasn't being chased down!_

Then again, Masque Sisters' SUV was a lot better prepared for adverse conditions than most. After a moment of pondering, Shego decided she shouldn't be too surprised after all. Vehicular advancements had often trickled down quickly from government agencies, especially safety related advancements. The Masque Sisters SUV was probably a test bed for systems Shego knew would be in civilian vehicles in less than a year, two at most.

That realization drew a fond snort from the pale thief, then a shake of her head and a reminiscent sigh. Often, she fought memories that didn't pertain to work or pleasure, but today she indulged herself. She followed the trail of the memory, of when she'd barely turned eight years old. She could clearly see her father enthusing to her mother about the family's brand new Ford SUV. Her mother, ever the contrarian, had remarked on how it seemed almost wasteful to purchase a seemingly outdated vehicle, which she considered all SUVs when related to crossover vehicles that combined most of the utility of an SUV and minivan.

Of course, her father had convinced her mother, almost against her will, that the SUV was the height of civilian vehicular engineering, and thus a better purchase. It had helped when he'd pointed out that it was essentially a crossover SUV. She'd eventually had to agree that it seemed almost one hundred years of engineering and electronics had passed down to the common man in just a few decades, and most of it had been distilled into the very vehicle he'd purchased the family. Her mother had scoffed somewhat at the last point, but changed her target to the very advancements he was espousing, saying they were just part and parcel of how quickly the world was capable of learning.

Shea Gottlieb hadn't cared, of course. She'd been as enamored with the vehicle as her father, especially with the third row seat… The seat she knew she'd get almost to herself, since her older brother Mendel would have to sit in the middle seat next to the twins, Marcus and Joeseph. She'd have to share the third row with her younger brother Hilliard, but he had taken after the men on their mother's side of the family: rail thin and on the short side.

All things considered, she'd known the two of them would easily fit into the rear seat. And thanks to the close emotional attachment the two of them had shared they almost never argued with each other. Unlike the constant bickering they both had with the aggressive, sometimes bully-like Mendel, which came as a huge, if unintended, bonus for their parents.

_Boy, how times changed..._ she mused, wishing, not for the first time, that things had been different. She shook her head, quashing the old, bitter memories before they could dominate her ruminations with fonder ones; summer fishing trips to the mountains above Go City, and even as far away as northern Idaho at Lake Coeur d'Alene… A family vacation over to Mt. Rushmore and the Black Hills of South Dakota, one in Yellowstone National Park and even the one they'd taken down to California. The latter had had taken them by the Grand Canyon, and even in her most jaded states she had been awed by the beauty of the place. Then there was winter, and the skiing and snowmobiling trips!

Those had been a long cherished favorite for the adventurous girl she had been. And the Ford had dutifully taken the ice and snow of the central and northern Rocky Mountains with an aplomb that even her often contrary mother appreciated. _Not a hovercraft, obviously, but…_ She shook her head again, her mood becoming somber at the thought of Drakken, _If only Dr. D. had sold his hovercraft designs to Ford or Chevy, we'd have bee-…_

"Penny for your thoughts, Hot Hands?" Anne asked from the rear passenger seat. Shego jumped slightly, turning briefly uncomprehending eyes back towards Anne. She wasn't used to being in the front seat when she was what could be considered a prisoner. Granted, they weren't treating her like one, but in a comparison of apples and oranges, the thief knew that both were fruit. Also granted, it was always best to have one person beside, or better yet, behind a potential prisoner. But in her line of work, having a potential enemy in the front seat next to the driver was anathema.

Of course, if Anne was even eighty percent as fast as Kim Possible, there was a good chance the red-head would be able to stop any attacks against Betty, anyway. _Not that I plan on doin' something _that_ stupid!_ With that thought bringing some of her humor back, the thief forced her somber mood down, and dredged up a fragile yet honest smile, her voice sounding as tired as she felt, "Just woolgathering… Some memories popped up, good and bad both… Mostly good, though…"

"Yeah, memori-..." Betty started, but cut herself off with a light growl of annoyance.

The sudden stop drew Shego's eyes back to the blue-clad woman, and her smile widened slightly as she saw the twitching of one eye and the cute, pouting grimace the younger woman had on her face. _That much seems the same as it was when I knew her..._ the pale thief noted, _The driving seems to have helped,_ _But the _radio_, on the other hand is annoying her like no tomorrow!_

"Dammit, aren't there any _decent_ stations in Wyoming?" Betty grimaced, obviously annoyed at the lack of stations other than country and oldies. The sound of her fingers prodding the steering wheel's radio buttons was becoming more insistant, when finally a song even Shego was familiar with came over the speakers. Betty relaxed visibly when what for her would be a newer Queen song started playing, and she went back to her interrupted comment, "Anyway, memories… Seems the day for it, don't it?"

The question could have been sour or biting, but came out in a surprisingly genial and sincere tone. Shego felt a brief pang of emotion that took her a few seconds to place. When she realized that the emotion was guilt, she felt a wash of annoyance, consternation and the seemingly irrational need to apologize to Betty and Anne both. _What the hell do _I_ have to apologize for?_ she groused to herself, _Sure, I brought something painful up for Betts, but just _being_ here's done that for _me_! Yeah, it put a little stress between them, but it's not like I need to sa-…_"I-I'm sorry, guys…"

"For what?" Betty asked, her tone sharpened by a spike of confusion from Shego's apology.

"Well…" Shego began, reaching up to scratch the back of her neck in a nervous fashion. She was _not_ good at this kind of thing, "I might be wrong, but I did kinda bring up something that might've caused some problems? And, well, ah, I was kinda aggressive…" The pale woman felt a flush creep across her face as she admitted the last, which earned a chuckle from Betty and a strange mix of sympathetic groan and a cut off giggle from Anne.

"No worries, Ailise," Betty smiled at her, her eyes and voice warming slightly at the apparent concern Shego had for them, "It's something I should've brought up to Annie a while back…"

"Yeah, you should've…" Anne confirmed, a tad sharply. Betty and Shego both turned their attention to her, Shego's brow unconsciously scrunching up in concern, and Betty's right eyebrow arching challengingly at her as she glanced in the rear view mirror before looking back at the road. "Sorry, didn't mean to say that aloud…" the red-head sighed, then continued in a ruefully amused tone, a slight accent Shego couldn't quite place slipping into her tone, "But yeah, Betty, you _really_ should have. I'm your best friend, like… I'm, kinda s'pose to be there for ya, y'know?"

Betty sighed and smiled affectionately as she glanced in the rearview mirror again. "No problems, babe… And I'm sorry for keepin' ya in the dark."

"Apology accepted, then!" Anne chirped, looking at Shego, "And thanks, Ailise, for bringing Betts' little confession out."

Shego shared a warm smile with Anne, an unexpected contentment spreading through her from the comment as well as the scene that had just played out. She felt… Good, having helped out, no matter how unintentionally. Unfortunately, part of her rebelled against the positive emotions, scoffing at the easy acceptance the two younger women had given to her, and the fact that she felt better than she had in months. The negativity was surprisingly strong, sliding noxiously through the warmth within her even as that warmth it continued to spread.

Keeping the smile on her face, she worked on quashing the negativity stillborn. She didn't need to fight herself in addition to the other challenges of just living here, let alone thinking about Drakken's mission or worse, carrying it out! Slowly, she felt the tide shift in favor of the positive emotions, and asked a question that had been niggling at her since they'd left the missile base, "How long 'til we're back to… Upperton, I presume?"

"Yep, and about another two hours, twenty…" Betty confirmed, drawing Shego's attention back to her. "The roads are pretty clear down through and south of Denver, so it shoul-…"

"Brakes! Hard left!" Shego shouted suddenly, and Betty reacted without thinking. Her left forefinger stabbed a button that was far from stock, labeled CD-VSS, which completely disabled the stock vehicle stability system. While the system was good to have on icy or rain slicked roadways, sometimes a vehicle needed the extra maneuvering capabilities a well trained driver could coax from a vehicle.

Such a time was now. Betty saw what had drawn the exclaimed commands from their additional passenger, even as she turned the wheel sharply to the left and prodded the throttle, before stabbing the brakes very briefly and easing back onto the gas and turning the wheel back to the right. The maneuver was smooth, and put the big SUV into a power drift that would make a rally driver envious.

Two objects streaked out of the darkness, their tips crackling with the electrical sparks. With the shape, and the warhead's electrical sparking, they had to be either Global Justice Ground-Vehicle Electrical System Immobilizer missiles, or high quality clones.

Betty's initial guess was confirmed when they streaked by at just over two hundred and fifty miles per hour. The GroVESI missiles, while not particularly fast, were designed for accuracy and control more than speed, being more semi-autonomous drones than true missiles. _If Ailise wouldn't've spotted 'em when she did, or if she'd spotted 'em _sooner_, we'd be screwed!_

The thought crossed her mind in a fraction of a second, even as the missiles attempted to turn in flight and come back at them, as they were designed to do. Whoever had fired the missiles at them had chosen his moment with obvious care and malice aforethought. They had been approaching a bridge over a small creek barely ten miles north of Cheyenne, Wyoming. Had the missiles struck, even the hardened electrical system in the Suburban might've failed.

With luck, they'd have struck inside the bridge's railing and ping ponged back and forth until they were past the bridge; if they'd have been thrown off course, they could have struck the bridge railing head on, or gone off the road and into the small, creek cut valley they were sliding over. Granted, it was perhaps a fifteen or twenty foot drop, but a stock Suburban weighed two and a quarter tons. The Masque Sisters' weighed in at just under three tons, and at seventy miles per hour, a fifteen or twenty foot drop might have been fatal, even with the extra safety equipment in the vehicle.

Somehow, Betty kept the big SUV's slide perfectly along the roadway, even after turning the vehicle over ninety degrees from straight. Sparing an instant of movement, she reached up and activated the wireless radio transmitter still on her left ear, "This is TMS-03, calling GJHQ-U! We have a hostile using GJ munitions firing upon us north of Cheyenne! Request details of intent or assistance!"

Even as Betty was answering the ID challenge and giving additional information, Shego was scanning behind and to the vehicle's left, looking for the missiles. She spotted them and pointed, calling out their location, "Seven thirty relative, slightly low!"

"As soon as the truck's stopped, I'll ground us and you kill the 'lectronics!" Anne barked, reaching out and opening a door on the back of the driver's seat. There were several safety covered toggle switches there, and she pulled the shield up, her finger on the toggle switch.

"Two, no, four more coming one o'clock as we sit and high!" Betty called out, and Shego felt herself itching to blast them with plasma. "Ailise, center console lid, lift it and pull the underside forward, there's five buttons, press the upper leftmost and lower center ones when we're almost stopped!"

"Right!" Shego confirmed, lifting the console lid and opening the hidden compartment, ready to press her buttons at the appropriate moment.

"C'mon, you beast, stop!" Anne barked as one of the missiles trailing them hit the guardrail and sparked, delivering its payload harmlessly into the bridge's structure.

Shego pressed the buttons when they were down around thirty miles per hour, leaving about one hundred feet before the vehicle stopped. There was a sound like a mall shop closing for the night as segmented shutters flew up to cover the windows of the vehicle. Then five pops and quickly fading whooshes sounded as five flares popped out of the rear of the vehicle, marking its path in case any vehicles came along while they were stopped in the middle of the road.

The Suburban finally slithered to a halt just over one hundred and fifty feet past the bridge, and the other five missiles bore down on it like hounds after a rabbit. Anne flipped her toggle switch. Immediately after, there was a sound like four compressed air hammers going off, and the whine of cable spooling from within the vehicle. Then Betty shut the vehicle down, pressing another button to the sound of eight relays tripping, completely isolating the SUV's four batteries from the electrical system. They then sat and waited, hoping what they'd done would be enough.

Two or perhaps three seconds later, five harsh impacts rang out against the side, front, and three of the now covered windows as the missiles impacted. The segmented steel buckled, and although the missiles didn't break through, the sound of clear acrylic cracking - and in the case of the rear window, breaking - was clear and loud in the darkened interior of the SUV.

The sound of the missiles discharging their payloads was almost as loud as their impacts against the vehicle. Shego half expected to hear fuses popping, or to feel a surge of electricity arcing into her body through the seat. Luckily, neither happened, and then Anne and Betty sprang into action, each donning their mask before calling out, "Go!" to each other.

Almost simultaneously, they reached for their doors and shoved them open, tumbling out efficiently and putting several feet between themselves and the Suburban. Within a second, the big SUV was bathed in a multi-million candlepower spotlight. It came from the left side and just a little higher than the top of the vehicle, the source almost a quarter mile distant.

Shego's egress was right behind the two heroines, but instead of tumbling out and away from the vehicle, she opened the door open just enough to slink through. She quickly shut the door and hugged the shadows cast by the immensely powerful spotlight, careful to keep her eyes from staring into the light so her night vision was unhindered.

She froze as she heard the rattling of several objects around where Anne had dashed, followed almost immediately by the subdued puffs of highly compressed air. She glanced towards where she felt Anne would be, and saw a flash of red and a stringy trail of white, foam like material exploding from several plastic spheres that had landed within about five feet of the red-head. _Great, sticky foam grenades? What the hell's goin' on here?_

"What the he-…" Anne began, jumping, dodging and weaving around almost all of the sticky, clingy foam. Unfortunately, the back of her right ankle and bottom of her left wrist had been hit by small globs of the foam. She landed in a low crouch and rested her left hand just above her left knee, sticking her hand fast to the knee and her right foot in a rather undignified position to her derriere.

"Sticky foam!" Shego called out. The red-head cocked her head in obvious confusion at the thief, so she pitching her voice low enough for only Anne to hear, "Don't try to move, An-, er, Red! You'll just get more stuck if you do, or rip your clothing off!"

"I thought that stuff was still being tested?" Betty called out from her position in the darkness, "Isn't it supposed to be suffocating if it gets on the face?"

"Not mine," An electronically distorted, male voice boomed out from almost directly above her, and descending fast, "My people aren't foolish enough to risk a lawsuit or the like; after all, supervillains tend to settle out of court with extreme prejudice!"

Betty let out a strangled cry as she dodged out of the way of the descending voice, barely avoiding a blow that would have lead to unconsciousness, if not an extended hospital stay.

"Masquerade!" Anne growled, finding out it was every bit as sticky as Shego had claimed as she shifted her outfit's leg up and down in her attempts to free her arm.

"That's Mr. Masquerade, Red Masque…" the supervillainous weapons dealer replied, "And I suggest not moving… I'd rather not use more force than necessary to get what I want, when you can just let me have it!"

"What the hell?" Betty asked, sending a fast, if rudimentary skipping sidekick towards the suited man's head, "We don't have anything you could possibly want…" she continued, blocking a vicious backhand with a wince before launching a spinning hook kick towards his midsection, "Unless the rumors of you going into the slave trade are true!"

"Do _not_ mock me, Blue Masque!" the man growled as another kick from Betty struck home, driving him back several steps. He jumped up as Betty moved in to take advantage, activating his suit's jet engines and hovering several feet above her, "I _will_ use lethal violence to get the warheads in the trunk you and that European woman at the silo loaded into your vehicle if I have to!"

"European woman?" Betty asked in confusion, distractedly adding, "Warhea-…" Distractedly enough for Mr. Masquerade to drop down and deliver a vicious kick to her gut before she could react.

"Don't toy with me, girl!" Mr. Masquerade declared as the blue clad heroine crashed into the Suburban with a choked cry of surprise.

**AD AD AD AD**

"Blue!" Anne shouted, struggling even more than she had been. Then a hand around her mouth stopped any more words from coming out, and a soft whisper in her ear brought her struggles to a startled halt.

"Shhh," the woman Anne knew as Ailise cooed softly into her ear, "I'm gonna get you free, just don't let 'im know I'm over here! This'll get hot…"

Anne nodded, even as Mr. Masquerade dropped down with vicious intent towards her partner and best friend. "What're you gonna do?" she asked back in the same tone, the strain of watching her friend taking the brunt of the fight almost too much for her.

A whisper soft set of movements that put the green and black clad woman between Anne and Mr. Masquerade, and the whoosh of plasma was the woman's answer to that question. "You good at sneakin', Red?" Ailese asked her as she pulled the other woman's arm and leg as far apart as she could. The red-head looked up to see a positively evil smirk gracing the beautiful woman's face. She felt a matching smirk rising on her own face as she nodded.

"Sneak up on Masky while Betty has him distracted?" Anne asked, her face scrunching up as if jumping into a shower that was slightly too warm. She glanced down to where her left wrist was stuck to her leg, and saw that Ailise was using a pencil thin jet of plasma from her fingertip to sever the stretched out part of the sticky foam. Once Anne's arm and leg were separated, the brunette widened the focus of her flame, running it over the foam on Anne's wrist and leg for a few seconds before nodding in satisfaction.

"Yup!" Ailese replied after she finished heating the sticky foam on the leg and arm, trying to ignore the grimace of discomfort on Anne's attractive face, "When this cools down, you should be able to break it off no problem!" She quickly moved Anne around and shifted her own position so she could access the foam on the red-head's right buttock and ankle. She paused, smirking as she looked Anne straight in the eye, "Um… Sorry about this, not tryin' to get fresh, honest!"

"Just get it over with!" Anne squeaked, blushing brightly at the brunette's salacious remark and trying not to think of how badly Betty was being manhandled by the suited man. _If he didn't have those damn jump jets, she'd already be kicking his ass!_ she thought worriedly, as the man made a swooping punch that Betty barely ducked.

She let out another startled squeak as she felt Ailise's left hand push firmly against her buttock while the woman's other hand gently tugged at the right leg just above the ankle. With wide eyes, she glanced down and saw that Ailise's close fingered grip on her rear was indeed more for purchase as opposed to pleasure. _Not that I'd feel any, of course!_

The blush she felt creeping down her neck gave lie to her self directed declaration, but any potential for enjoyment of the situation was short lived as Ailise whispered to her, "Sorry 'bout this, Red… This crud is closer here than it was on the other leg! But I shouldn't have to reheat the whole mass like the other side, either…"

Anne opened her mouth to ask what she meant when she felt a sharp heat, far more than she'd felt on her left hand and leg. "Shit! Hot Hands is an understatement, isn't it?" she growled, almost whimpering as the heat intensified further still. Thankfully, the smaller contact area meant both that the duration Ailise had to apply her plasma was shorter, and the heat bleeding through covered a smaller area. _Thank God these suits are heat resistant,_ Anne thought with a grimace, _I'd probably be getting a third degree burn instead of what amounts to a sunburn!_

As Ailise finished cutting, the red-head flopped down gratefully to her rump, burrowing it and her ankle into the snow at the side of the road. _I've never felt happier to sit down in snow my entire life!_ The fact that she'd have a mark that was at least as intense as a sunburn, if not a solid scald welt, was bad, but she could live with that.

While she cooled her right buttock and ankle, Ailise quickly went to work breaking as much of the material as she could from Anne's left thigh as the younger woman did the same to her left wrist. "At least you're free of this gunk, right?" the now slightly green tinted woman asked, earning a heartfelt nod of agreement from the red-head

"Ready?" Anne asked the woman after getting most of the now solid foam off of her wrist. Ailise nodded and smirked at her, before slinking off into the shrinking shadows being cast by the Suburban. Anne followed a couple steps behind, and tried to convince herself she was _not_ watching the way the other woman's firm, shapely rear moved in her catsuit.

**AD AD AD AD**

"You just don't know when to quit, do you?" Betty spat at the flying man, ducking another attempt at a flying punch. "We weren't there for some stupid nuke's warheads, jackass! And that woman we found is from G-…"

"Speaking of the European woman," Mr. Masquerade interrupted as he came to a hover about fifteen feet above her, angering the auburn haired heroine all the more. _Just keep it up, the angrier she gets, the sloppier she fights!_ "Where is she? I saw her leave with you; did she get injured in your attempt to avoid my munitions?" Seeing that his banter had worked as intended, he cut his jets completely and dropped into a sidekick that knocked the Betty on her back, and the breath from her chest.

Betty, still gasping for breath, didn't bother replying aloud as she dodged a jet powered jumping stomp from above. _Hopefully, she's waiting for an opportunity to strike. With her powers, you won't stand a chance!_ Unfortunately, there was no sign of either Ailise or Anne, making her even more worried and frustrated with the situation. Not only had Mr. Masquerade snuck up on them, but the hardened parts of his armor made his already powerful kicks particularly vicious. _If that would've hit me in the back of the head,_ she thought as she pushed herself up, _Or while I had my mask off, I'd have been out for sure._

That made her quite grateful for the new suits; two weeks ago, in her old suit, she'd been hit with a kick almost as powerful as his. The kick had bruised, and nearly _cracked_, three ribs, and she still had a heel print shaped bruise on her lower right chest. Now, other than a vicious bruise across her right breast and having the wind knocked out of her, she figured that she should be fine.

Dodging another attempt to deliver a literal flying sidekick, she finally caught her breath. She smiled at the man then, answering his question with a flippant shrug and chirping, "Dunno! Haven't seen her since you attacked us!"

Mr. Masquerade growled and feinted with another flying punch, then drove his left shoulder viciously into her. She rolled with the blow, tucking into a ball as she fell backwards and rolled into a handspring to land in a crouch, several feet from the villain… And, she realized, from the rear of their Suburban, which was the man's apparent target.

Unfortunately, she had been too focused on her target to notice the spotlight had gotten brighter, and had changed position to nearly directly above her. She was in the process of launching a new attack, when several black plastic balls bounced down in front of her from almost directly above. She glanced up and muttered a foul curse as she realized he'd called his VTOL in via remote, and had targeted her with the grenade launcher she could see sticking out of the chin turret.

Not knowing if the balls contained more sticky foam, or some form of irritant, knockout gas or even a nerve agent, she jumped back and away. She almost sighed in relief as the same off white, exceedingly sticky foam exploded from the balls, but had to keep jumping and dodging, lest she get tied down with the sticky foam as well.

Unfortunately, while she kept it all away from her body, the top half of her mask was coated by the sticky foam. The foam had somehow missed both her hair and the open area where her mouth was, but even so, it still covered the eyes. She ripped the mask off to see, and noticed that while she had dodged all of the sticky foam grenades, she was almost twenty five yards from the suited man, and he was already in the process of breaking into the back of the Suburban.

With a dark laugh, the man flexed his right arm and brought it up. A thin tube extended from the upper arm of his suit at the elbow, the tip glowing a dangerous bluish-purple when it stopped at its extended position. He pointed it at the latch of the rear door and it discharged a small, intense ball of plasma.

He called the device, an invention of one of his company's scientific teams, a "Master Key". His advertising material claimed "It can open nearly any locked door!", and what he did in that moment bore out that he used truth in advertising. The ball of plasma flared out, and while almost dissipating before hitting the latch, it struck true

The explosion was small, about as loud as an M-60 firecracker, but the intense heat from the plasma ball melted even the reinforced latch on the back of the SUV. He immediately ripped the door open, reached in and grabbed the trunk. "Good day, ladies!" he called, reaching up to the cargo hook and line that he had spooled out of the VTOL, quickly attaching it to one of the trunk's carrying handles and stepping back.

"It was a pleasure doing business with yo-…" he began, bowing towards Betty who was starting to sprint back to his position. His mocking taunt was cut off as he received a flying side kick straight into to the face. Mr. Masquerade staggered back a half step as Anne landed and rolled left, delivering a follow up rising hook kick to the front of his still bent over face as she completed her roll.

"The only thing in that trunk're my clothes 'n' undies… Pervo!" Shego grated, barely remembering the time she was in and changing her slang slightly. She growled under her breath as she realized how stilted she must sound. She was beyond mere anger at the situation; not only had Drakken screwed up by the numbers and put her two months _later_ than he'd planned, she was stuck helping two of her childhood idols being the heroes that they were.

And now this! Some idiot, wannabe supervillain thought one of her clothing trunks was stuffed with nuclear warheads! And the worst part was that she knew the man's fighting style, and not being able to place it was sure to drive her insane! It was like that word or name that sat right on the tip of your tongue, and you just couldn't quite spit it out.

Mr. Masquerade heard the woman's declaration, and turned towards Shego's voice. He cocked his head slightly in confusion when neither his eyes, nor any his sophisticated visual equipment could find any sign of her at all. He didn't see her until he was flying through the air after receiving a brutal spinning back kick to his gut. _She was to my right? But how?_

Back the suited man flew, sailing almost two dozen feet to land hard against the far side of the median ditch. "Holy shit!" Betty and Anne both cried, blinking in awe at the strength the strange woman had just displayed.

**AD AD AD AD**

"Madam Director! Madam Director!" GJ Primary Headquarters Chief Communications Specialist First Calvin Deschamps called out as he jogged into the command and control center of Global Justice Headquarters, Upperton. His French accent was heavier than normal, and the light blue and grey jumpsuit was disheveled from the five hundred meter sprint from the main communications hub to the command and control center.

He paused to catch his breath, resettling the five manila folders under one arm and making sure he still had both of the printed pages that had spurred his run to the command and control center in his left hand. He drew a few deep, whistling breaths in through his curiously large nose, before wiping his left forearm across his brow to clear the sweat dripping from his close cropped, platinum blonde hair from getting into his narrow set hazel eyes. "Madam Director," he called out as his eyes alit on the red haired woman standing beside a seated blonde woman, "Urgent communiqué, command level, eyes only!"

The man's often heavy accent was difficult for some of his fellow agents to follow; luckily, the short, powerfully built yet stunning red-head striding purposefully towards him could understand him perfectly. She had spent literally decades working with foreigners, both with the State Department of the United States and later with the United Nations. She smiled at the man and shook her head slightly, flipping the long bangs of her pixie cut hair from her amused, forest green eyes.

Her normal, professionally neutral accent slipped slightly into a Montana country girl's drawl as his tone and appearance registered, "What's th' situation beyond th' report, Cal?" she asked as her prodigious reading speed tore through the two page report he'd handed her.

"We have picked up an emergency assistance request from The Masque Sisters, madam Director. They were attacked on the I-25 just north of Cheyenne." he answered promptly, saying no more until given the okay by the red-head due to the situation's sensitivity.

"Render it," the red-head barked to the command crew on the tier below, who she knew would have heard the communications chief's terse message. As she continued, her voice dropped into a drill sergeant's timbre, "An' I mean 'mediately if not sooner! Try an' raise 'em on the horn, if ya can, or report t'me if ya can't. Either way, get a few gunships out there, urban safe loadout! Tell 'em to watch out for GJ 'r equivalent anti-vehicle munitions! An' try'n find 'em with survey sats if y'can!"

"Yes, ma'am!" several voices called out from the command staff, as they turned to their terminals. The quiet murmur of the command and control center briefly exploded into a flurry of activity as orders were passed and satellite feeds were brought online.

"An' _you'd_ better ge'cher ass back to the communication's center, Cal." the director admonished the Frenchman gently, "Y'all're supposed to be in charge there, after all! That's why I stationed runners in alla the sensitive areas."

"Yes, Madam Director," he agreed readily, the long standing argument bringing an amused twinkle to his eye despite the situation. The two women were, after all, were promising crime and supervillain fighters, and being watched for potential recruitment in the near future. Dismissing the thought, he held out a set of five manila folders, "But I also have some other important documents that are not as urgent, but could only be delivered by command level staff. Such as myself, you understand."

"Yeah, yeah," she answered with a chuckle, taking the documents and handing them to the cutely attractive blonde woman that was Golbal Justice's Second in Command, "Get back to your station, Cal. Double time!" Calvin stood and gave her a parade ground perfect salute, which she returned with equal aplomb, before turning and sprinting back towards his post.

"You two almost sound like a married couple at times, y'know?" the blonde said as she opened one of the folders. "Great, more trouble in the Iran-Iraq conflict… Someone tried to smuggle a couple sustained beam, gigawatt lasers in…"

"Well, those documents were marked as important but not urgent…" the redhead remarked as she schooled voice and accent back under control. Confident she had, she walked to the observation railing in front of the commander's console system, known internally as the command node. She paused and glanced down over the five tiers of the command and control room. "And we've got something a little more pressing directly related to GJ right at the moment, don't we, Tildie?"

The room she overlooked was huge; five levels deep, with each level jutting out a little more as it descended from the main observation and command node. Each level had dozens of computer, security or communications stations, and arched out from the observation and command node.

Overall, from the bottom floor below the stepped command levels it looked almost as if a headless, pot bellied god sat facing the main screen, which was made up of a dozen huge plasma flat panel monitors. It was upon that screen that both women's attention quickly centered.

"Yes, we do ma'am" the blonde replied after a moment, her almost vacantly attentive tone belying the keen intellect behind her eyes, "We do indeed. I do hope they'll be alright, especially if that _is_ stolen GJ tech at Mr. Masquerade's disposal!" She stepped up beside her friend and superior officer, watching the main screen as The Masque Sister's vehicle was finally spotted by surveillance satellites.

"What have we here…" the red-head hummed as she brought a hand up to her chin, rubbing her lower lip in thought. "A passenger? And you're right, that has to be Mr. Masquerade attacking them… It's not stolen hardware, at least not the whole cloth. How he gets his vehicles so close to ours…"

"My nephew is certain there's someone down in the depot feeding him info, and more importantly, parts, but he's not sure who…" Tildie replied, earning a nod from the red-head.

"Yes, but unfortunately, we haven't been able to find the missing parts," she sighed, her hand forming a fist and pounding the railing in front of her firmly, "Hell, we haven't even been able to find out if the computers have been hacked!"

"Well," Tildie pursed her lips, her lips forming a silent whistle as the woman that had helped young Anne free herself from some kind of binding literally disappeared off of their imagery, Anne managing the feat almost as effectively, "That nephew of mine knows the vehicle and parts depot like the back of his hand, the mechanical engineering department, too… If he says something's missing…"

"I know he knows his tool like the back of his hand…" the red-head smirked as Tildie grunted in agreement, waiting for the outraged squawk from her friend. Five seconds later, the squawk came, and she turned an innocent expression to the blonde, "I mean, tools…"

"Be nice!" Tildie protested, frowning with mild confusion as to why her friend was picking on her nephew. As sharp as she was at analyzing situations and reports, she wasn't so sharp at analyzing her friend's motivations. As such, she didn't realize that the red-head's change of topic had drawn her from the worry over missing parts and Mr. Masquerade's ability to match Global Justice on an almost equal basis.

"Oh, I'd love to be…" the shorter woman responded evenly, "I mean, if not for the chain of command… I'd be willing to bet your nephew could be a _lot_ of fun! If his hair was a bit shorter, and you look at him from the right angle, he'd look like my late Anthony…" She made an appreciative growling sound in the back of her throat, watching her friend's expression change from shocked to almost horrified as the red-head licked her lips in as absent a manner as she could. "And have you _seen_ that ass when he's bent over working on an engine-…"

"_Kimmie_!" Global Justice's Second in Command, called Tildie by most of the people that knew her, croaked out as discreetly as she could, "I have no idea what his ass looks like! I mean, for God's sake, he's my _nephew_!"

"I know, _Matilda_, but that's what makes teasing you about him so much _fun_!" Kimberly chirped innocently, purposely emphasizing her friend's name, implying that she could be as conservative as her name implied. She winked when Tildie glowered at her, favoring the blonde with a brilliant, teasingly fond smile. Matilda stuck her tongue out and blew her friend a raspberry, before turning her attention back to the screen.

"With friends like you…" Tildie sighed with a fond chuckle. She turned her attention back to the screen as well, just in time to see Anne deliver a two kick combination to the weapons dealer.

"Now that's impressive…" Kimberly muttered with widened eyes as The Masque Sister's passenger seemed to appear out of nowhere to the man's right, then spun and kicked Mr. Masquerade a computer measured seven meters and eleven centimeters. Several thoughts on the potential advantages of having someone with her abilities around flashed through her mind, but she put them on a back burner as she concentrated on the here and now…

**Author's Notes**

Wait, wait… What? A red-headed, green eyed woman named Kimberly? In charge of GJ? And… Wait, again, Matilda? Kimberly calls her _Tildie_? Something might not be right in Denmark, after all!

Then again, Shego's keeping the use of her plasma to a minimum… But while Anne's kicking ass, Betty seems to be lagging in the martial prowess department? More strangeness? Is the author losing his mind? Has he already _lost_ it?

Hardly… But believe me, all will be explained… In time, of course. ^_^

Thanks to Neo the Saiyan Angel for the plot ideas, as well as the readability and flow beta. And I'm quite sorry for replacing the content of the chap twice now... I'd hope to have caught more of my grammar flub ups in this chapter, but, well, whoops...! _ But still, I hope ya enjoyed it!

And, as always, do try and enjoy the other fics that're out there, just waitin' to be read!


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